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American Morning

Steroids Scandal

Aired October 20, 2003 - 08:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The investigation of a steroid scandal in sports is now being expanded beyond amateur athletics into the professional ranks. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency accuses a company in San Francisco of making supplements and providing designer steroids to athletes. The agency, an independent group with authority to test American Olympic athletes, says several track and field stars have tested positive for what's known as THG.
A statement from the company that provides the supplement says: "The U.S. ADA has been reporting that the agent is a controlled substance and illegal, and that is just simply not true."

Roy Johnson, assistant managing editor for "Sports Illustrated," is back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Nice to see you. Welcome back.

ROY S. JOHNSON, ASST. MANAGING EDITOR, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED": Nice to see you. Thanks.

HEMMER: The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency responds and says this: "This is a conspiracy involving chemists, coaches and certain athletes." If true, that is a rather large conspiracy. How big is it right now?

JOHNSON: Absolutely. This is potentially probably one of the biggest drug scandals in sports history.

HEMMER: Why?

JOHNSON: Well, the first thing, you've got this federal investigation going on, looking into nutritional supplements. Depending on how far that goes, we'll discover a lot of information about what is happening -- what could be happening to today's athletes relative to, you know, growth and power and things that many fans have been suspecting for some time. But the biggest thing that occurred here this weekend was the discovery of this designer steroid.

Now, there have been rumors about designer steroids for a long time. But this is really the first time that doctors have been able to find one, and it literally fell in their lap in a syringe that was delivered to them by, you know, an anonymous donor, so to speak.

HEMMER: Informant.

JOHNSON: Informant. And once they discovered this one, it could open the door to potentially a lot of discovery. Already baseball has added THG to its list of banned substances, and it will help the agencies figure out sort of how designer drugs really are getting by them.

HEMMER: Listen to this angle of the story, too, and tell me what the impact could or could not be.

JOHNSON: Sure.

HEMMER: Subpoenas are now reported for as many as 40 athletes, including the likes of Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees, Marion Jones. What's possibly in store for them, if they testify?

JOHNSON: Well, there are also NFL players, and certainly once they get on the stand, they will have to testify as to what it is they've exactly been taking that perhaps has influenced some of the records and performances that we have seen over the last few years. If this comes to fruition, it will shed light, not only on track and field, not only on baseball, not only on the NFL, but certainly potentially any sport where we've seen substantial growth, where we've seen substantial records fall, and that's really just about every sport.

HEMMER: THG, I know you're a writer and not a doctor, what does it do? How does it enhance the ability of an athlete?

JOHNSON: Well, first of all, let's get clear on what designer drugs are. You know, every one of these steroids has a particular molecular structure that the doping agencies and the anti-doping agencies have screens for. A designer steroid is where you take this molecular structure and just change one aspect of it, and all of a sudden none of these screens are able to detect it.

So, you know, there have been rumors about the designer steroids, but the users have always been one step ahead of the agencies. And now, at least on this particular steroid, the agencies have caught up.

HEMMER: So, if true, the way we lay it out and the way the story is reading right now, you have to know what the tests are designed to pick up and detect in order to get around it.

JOHNSON: And not only that, but, you know, track and field, this is really a watershed moment for track and field.

HEMMER: Do you think so?

JOHNSON: I'm a track and field fan, and it's really now almost impossible for me to watch a track and field event without thinking that, you know, these athletes perhaps are using something. And if that's the case, they may have to do something drastic. One of the things they might have to do, and I think that they should do it, is consider shutting down a sport for an entire year.

HEMMER: Wow!

JOHNSON: Let's just not go to the Olympics, and say, look, we need to clean this sport up. Because if they don't do something like that going into next year's Olympics, almost every athlete that takes the track, that competes in track and field will be tainted.

HEMMER: Come back anytime, OK?

JOHNSON: Absolutely.

HEMMER: Yankees or Marlins, who's playing better baseball right now?

JOHNSON: The Yankees have more positives in key areas. The key is game three. The Marlins best pitcher is going on the mound. If they don't win that game, it's going to be tough to come back against Clemens in game four.

HEMMER: Marlins fans are going nuts in southern Florida. We'll see. And there was the shot from that series last night. Wow!

JOHNSON: Absolutely, you know, a great game.

HEMMER: Thank you, Roy. We'll talk to you again.

JOHNSON: All right, see you again.

HEMMER: All right, bye-bye.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired October 20, 2003 - 08:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The investigation of a steroid scandal in sports is now being expanded beyond amateur athletics into the professional ranks. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency accuses a company in San Francisco of making supplements and providing designer steroids to athletes. The agency, an independent group with authority to test American Olympic athletes, says several track and field stars have tested positive for what's known as THG.
A statement from the company that provides the supplement says: "The U.S. ADA has been reporting that the agent is a controlled substance and illegal, and that is just simply not true."

Roy Johnson, assistant managing editor for "Sports Illustrated," is back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

Nice to see you. Welcome back.

ROY S. JOHNSON, ASST. MANAGING EDITOR, "SPORTS ILLUSTRATED": Nice to see you. Thanks.

HEMMER: The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency responds and says this: "This is a conspiracy involving chemists, coaches and certain athletes." If true, that is a rather large conspiracy. How big is it right now?

JOHNSON: Absolutely. This is potentially probably one of the biggest drug scandals in sports history.

HEMMER: Why?

JOHNSON: Well, the first thing, you've got this federal investigation going on, looking into nutritional supplements. Depending on how far that goes, we'll discover a lot of information about what is happening -- what could be happening to today's athletes relative to, you know, growth and power and things that many fans have been suspecting for some time. But the biggest thing that occurred here this weekend was the discovery of this designer steroid.

Now, there have been rumors about designer steroids for a long time. But this is really the first time that doctors have been able to find one, and it literally fell in their lap in a syringe that was delivered to them by, you know, an anonymous donor, so to speak.

HEMMER: Informant.

JOHNSON: Informant. And once they discovered this one, it could open the door to potentially a lot of discovery. Already baseball has added THG to its list of banned substances, and it will help the agencies figure out sort of how designer drugs really are getting by them.

HEMMER: Listen to this angle of the story, too, and tell me what the impact could or could not be.

JOHNSON: Sure.

HEMMER: Subpoenas are now reported for as many as 40 athletes, including the likes of Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees, Marion Jones. What's possibly in store for them, if they testify?

JOHNSON: Well, there are also NFL players, and certainly once they get on the stand, they will have to testify as to what it is they've exactly been taking that perhaps has influenced some of the records and performances that we have seen over the last few years. If this comes to fruition, it will shed light, not only on track and field, not only on baseball, not only on the NFL, but certainly potentially any sport where we've seen substantial growth, where we've seen substantial records fall, and that's really just about every sport.

HEMMER: THG, I know you're a writer and not a doctor, what does it do? How does it enhance the ability of an athlete?

JOHNSON: Well, first of all, let's get clear on what designer drugs are. You know, every one of these steroids has a particular molecular structure that the doping agencies and the anti-doping agencies have screens for. A designer steroid is where you take this molecular structure and just change one aspect of it, and all of a sudden none of these screens are able to detect it.

So, you know, there have been rumors about the designer steroids, but the users have always been one step ahead of the agencies. And now, at least on this particular steroid, the agencies have caught up.

HEMMER: So, if true, the way we lay it out and the way the story is reading right now, you have to know what the tests are designed to pick up and detect in order to get around it.

JOHNSON: And not only that, but, you know, track and field, this is really a watershed moment for track and field.

HEMMER: Do you think so?

JOHNSON: I'm a track and field fan, and it's really now almost impossible for me to watch a track and field event without thinking that, you know, these athletes perhaps are using something. And if that's the case, they may have to do something drastic. One of the things they might have to do, and I think that they should do it, is consider shutting down a sport for an entire year.

HEMMER: Wow!

JOHNSON: Let's just not go to the Olympics, and say, look, we need to clean this sport up. Because if they don't do something like that going into next year's Olympics, almost every athlete that takes the track, that competes in track and field will be tainted.

HEMMER: Come back anytime, OK?

JOHNSON: Absolutely.

HEMMER: Yankees or Marlins, who's playing better baseball right now?

JOHNSON: The Yankees have more positives in key areas. The key is game three. The Marlins best pitcher is going on the mound. If they don't win that game, it's going to be tough to come back against Clemens in game four.

HEMMER: Marlins fans are going nuts in southern Florida. We'll see. And there was the shot from that series last night. Wow!

JOHNSON: Absolutely, you know, a great game.

HEMMER: Thank you, Roy. We'll talk to you again.

JOHNSON: All right, see you again.

HEMMER: All right, bye-bye.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.