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Disgraced Graham says he did nothing wrong
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-26 09:32 NEW YORK: Trevor Graham, the disgraced athletics coach who remains banned for life by USA Track and Field, told the New York Times he was innocent in his first public comments about doping since the 2004 Olympics.
Graham, the ex-coach of disgraced former stars Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin and Tim Montgomery, served a year of home confinement for making false statements to a federal agent in a steroid investigation that he helped launch. "I didn't do anything wrong," Graham told the Times in comments published late on Saturday after an interview of nearly five hours on Friday night. Graham had not spoken with reporters since the Athens Olympics, where he said he was the person who anonymously sent a syringe of a previously undetectable steroid to US ati-doping officials. "That was just a coach doing the right thing," Graham said. That move touched off the epic BALCO steroid scandal probe, a major doping investigation which widened to eventually ensnare Jones, Gatlin, Montgomery and Graham and taint other athletics stars as well as Major League Baseball heroes. "Everything goes back to me sending in the syringe because if I hadn't done that, none of this would have happened," Graham told the Times.
Graham said he is considering appealing the life ban placed upon him by the US athletics governing body. Prosecutors say Graham played a "major role in ruining at least a dozen careers and lives other than his own and bringing worldwide shame to the entire sport of track and field" and has not accepted responsibility for his actions. Admitted steroid distributors Victor Conte, the found of BALCO, and Angel Heredia, have confessed to giving Graham drugs. Five athletes testified Graham had set them up with Heredia to obtain banned substances. Graham argued there was a conspiracy against him and lacked proof, noting he was not convicted on harsher doping-related charges after two jurors pushed to acquit him. "Trevor Graham has not been truthful from the beginning," Conte told the Times on Saturday. "I personally gave him drugs on several occasions, including hand to hand, so there's no doubt in my mind that Trevor Graham distributed performance-enhancing drugs to his athletes." Graham, 46, said he still coaches but would not say where or who. "I can coach whoever I want to coach because I'm not doing anything illegal," Graham said. "It's clear that Mr. Graham is still living in La-La Land," US Anti-Doping Agency director Travis T Tygart told the Times. AFP |
