Stories related to: performance-enhancing drugs

Cyclist Floyd Landis lost perhaps his final chance to keep his 2006 Tour de France title today, the AP reports, with a key panel upholding a 2-year doping ban. The three-person Court of Arbitration for Sport said Landis’ drug test was the product of “less than ideal laboratory practices, but not lies, fraud, forgery or cover-ups” as the American claimed. More »

Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens has been put on the NFL's "reasonable cause" group for drug screening after failing to make himself available for a random test, ESPN reports. Owens' "plausible" excuse for not returning the league's calls on that day has saved him from disciplinary action, though not from future scrutiny. More »

Roger Clemens was on at least one performance enhancing drug, a clubhouse source tells the New York Daily News : Viagra. Clemens wasn’t using Vitamin V to help with the ladies, he—and several of his teammates—were using it to improve his on-field performance. Viagra has become a major fad among athletes, because of its ability to improve endurance and deliver nutrients to muscles. More »

Big Brown carries the best hopes of racing fans as he tries to capture the Triple Crown today, but represents the worst of horse racing, writes Peter Thomas Fornatale in the New York Times . Brown is an admirable creature, sure, but he's the product of a company that runs its stable like a hedge fund, where "the horse becomes just another commodity to be bought and sold like a share of stock, with little concern for its fate." More »

After over a decade of chemical-fueled insanity, baseball is back to normal, writes Thomas Boswell in the Washington Post. Home run totals are down 10.4% this spring, after an 8% drop last year. The sport is on pace to return to the century-old statistical norms ripped to shreds by the steroid era. “I think this is a good thing,” said Orioles prez Andy MacPhail. “It’s more like baseball.” More »

An admitted steroid dealer told a San Francisco jury that he showed track coach Trevor Graham—who trained Olympic medalists Tim Montgomery and Antonio Pettigrew, among others—the ins-and-outs of the performance-enhancing drug trade. Angel "Memo" Heredia said he crossed the Mexican border to buy steroids, human growth hormone, and other banned drugs for Graham, reports the San Francisco Chronicle . More »

US Attorneys have a list of 104 baseball players who failed a 2003 drug test, even though the players' union vowed to keep those names secret. The union has contested the Feds' search, but the list could become public in a matter of weeks, reports the New York Times . More »

Roger Clemens broke his silence on the allegations that he has had numerous affairs, apologizing for his "mistakes" in a statement to the Houston Chronicle . The Rocket stressed that his "personal life has nothing to do with the accusations of steroid and HGH use," and denied beginning a relationship with Mindy McCready when the country singer was 15. More »

Friends and critics of Roger Clemens agree on one thing: He's well beyond "say it ain't so" and entering "stop the bleeding" territory. Those close to the rambling family man are urging him to drop his defamation lawsuit against Brian McNamee, and a legal expert compares him to a lemming, reports the New York Daily News. More »

Testosterone injections are among the most common performance-enhancing drugs detected in athlete screenings, but some lucky competitors can take them without fear of exposure, the New York Times reports. Of 55 men given testosterone in a recent study, 17 came up clean on a drug test because they're missing the pair of genes that cause testosterone to dissolve in urine. More »

It wasn't just country singer Mindy McCready that Roger Clemens carried on with, a source tells the New York Daily News. The former Major League pitcher apparently had several lovely lady friends whom he jetted across the country in his plane and presented with expensive jewelry. One of them admitted to knowing Clemens, but had no comment about their relationship. More »

Country star Mindy McCready confirmed that she had a 10-year affair with Roger Clemens in a tearful interview yesterday with the New York Daily News. "I cannot refute anything in the story," McCready says. The two met in 1991, when the singer was 15, and Clemens was 28 and married, although the relationship didn't become sexual until later. More »

Clubs and players agreed yesterday to toughen Major League Baseball's anti-doping policy, the AP reports. Players will be tested more frequently without notice, and the game's outside administrator—a position created in 2005 to oversee testing—will get more authority. As part of the deal, all of the players named in the Mitchell Report have been given amnesty. More »

Jose Canseco, baseball’s most outspoken steroid user, suggests that reigning AL MVP Alex Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs in his new book Vindicated, reports the New York Post. This according to a Massachusetts-based writer, who found a copy yesterday in a local store, although it's not due for release until April 1. "I really have absolutely no reaction," was the Yankee slugger's response. More »

Roger Clemens arrived at the Houston Astros’ training camp determined to avoid questions about his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. “Everything’s been said that needs to be said on that. We’re moving forward. It’s baseball time. We’re going to enjoy that,” the hurler said. It was the first time Clemens spoke with the press since his Feb. 13 congressional hearing, reports the Houston Chronicle . More »

The congressional panel that questioned Roger Clemens about steroids has drafted a letter asking the Justice Department to investigate whether he committed perjury, the New York Times reports. The letter doesn't name his former trainer, Brian McNamee, who testified the same day and insisted Clemens is lying, but that could change before the letter is submitted. More »

"Last year, I got tested 9 to 10 times," Alex Rodriguez told reporters yesterday. The high number of tests raises questions, according to the New York Times . MLB mandates two tests a year per player, plus 600 random tests, for which "There is no limit on the number of times a player can be tested," according to spokesman Richard Levin. More »

Here’s the list of people human growth hormone is proven to help: the elderly, AIDS and tuberculosis patients, and people with hormone deficiencies. Baseball players aren’t on that list, Newsweek reports, and neither are thousands of ordinary people who believe HGH slows the aging process. “There’s a great deal of hype,” said one endocrinologist, “but there isn’t a great deal of evidence.” More »

Roger Clemens was not in the “twilight” of his career or "washed up" in the late '90s, a statistical report released by his agents today aims to show, to refute allegations that the hurler used performance-enhancing drugs to rebound. The report compares his stats to other major league pitchers and shows Clemens was already an MVP the year his trainer claims to have begun dosing him. More »

Barry Bonds' attorneys have filed a motion in federal court to have the perjury charges against him dismissed. The charges stem from Bonds allegedly lying to a grand jury about his use of performance-enhancing drugs in December 2003. Bonds claims that the indictment was “scattershot” and that questions poised to him by prosecutors were ambiguous and confusing, the AP reports. More »