AMERICA AT LARGE: The noose appears to tighten around Barry Bonds' neck with each passing day, and the US Justice Department's enthusiastic campaign to bring down the drug cheats who have over the past decade made a mockery of baseball's record books could have an unexpected beneficiary: Eamonn Coghlan.
The one yawning void in Coghlan's long and storied athletic career was the absence of an Olympic medal. In his Olympic debut at the 1976 Montreal Games, Coghlan finished fourth in the 1,500 metres. At Moscow four years later, he finished fourth again, this time in the 5,000. But as the dominos begin to tumble in the fallout from the BALCO probe a quarter century later, the Irish athlete could wind up with a medal after all.
Although the Feds sprung into action with their raid on the BALCO lab almost a year ago, no one has yet been brought to trial. Despite the imposition of a gag order from the bench, however, transcripts of the Federal grand jury testimony have been copiously leaked to the media - specifically, the San Francisco Chronicle - over the past weeks, and, perhaps anticipating the inevitable, BALCO founder Victor Conte has taken the first steps in attempting to save his own skin by ratting out his clients.
A bit over a week ago it emerged that New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi, a former American League Most Valuable Player, admitted to having used both steroids and human growth hormone during the 2003 season.
Giambi explained that he had met Bonds' personal trainer (one of four individuals to have actually been indicted in the BALCO case) and asked, "What are the things you're doing with Barry?" Giambi apparently got off the juice for this past season, and turned from Superman back into Clark Kent. In the wake of his admissions, the Yankees are seeking to void the remaining $82 million owed on his long-term contract.
Within 24 hours, Bonds' own rather preposterous testimony became public. The man who already owns baseball's single-season home run record, and appears destined to pass both Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron next year to assume the number one position in the all-time career annals, admitted to having used steroids, but asserted that he had done so unknowingly.
Bonds' claim that when he used two BALCO-produced substances, known as "The Clear" and "The Cream", he thought he was merely using flaxseed oil and an arthritic salve might be utterly ridiculous, but that's Barry's story and he's sticking to it.
With new revelations popping up every day, Conte took to the defensive and allowed himself to be interviewed on ABC's 20/20 programme last Friday night. Conte boasted of his expertise in perfecting undetectable performance- enhancing drugs, and claimed he had not only supplied Marion Jones with his designer steroid THG, EPO and insulin, but he had watched Jones inject herself with human growth hormone.
Conte's revelations were disturbing enough to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that president Jacques Rogge announced the formation of a disciplinary panel to examine l'affaire Jones, a probe which could lead to Jones being stripped of the five medals she won at the 2000 Sydney Games. "The allegations made by Mr Conte are extremely serious, and the IOC is fully committed to bringing to light any elements that will help the truth prevail," said Rogge's statement.
This decision represents a reversal of policy, since the IOC has previously observed a three-year statute of limitations when it comes to changing the result of an Olympic event.
Frank Shorter, who won the 1972 Olympic marathon in Munich and finished second to East Germany's Waldemar Czierpinski in 1976, is now an attorney practising in Boulder, Colorado. After the fall of the East German government, secret police documents revealed that Czierpinski had used steroids, and Shorter attempted to file suit to recover the '76 gold for himself and the bronze medal for team-mate Don Kordong, who finished fourth at Montreal.
Shorter was thwarted at the time by the three-year statue of limitations, but should the IOC reverse its position by stripping Marion Jones, he said he is prepared to re-open his case.
"Don and I have had to come to grips with this," said Shorter this week. "In a sense we were at peace with it. But we were always patient. If ever a window opened, we would dive through it - and I sense another window here."
Should Shorter prevail, the door would also be open for Coghlan. When Finland's Maarinka Hannes, who finished third in the Moscow 5,000, subsequently became a born-again Christian, he revealed he had been guilty of blood-doping for the 1980 Olympics, and threw the medal that might have been Coghlan's into a Finnish lake.
"The problem with all of this is that it could affect literally hundreds of Olympic medal-winners," said Coghlan, who was in New York yesterday attending a meeting of the New York Athletic Club's board of directors.
Coghlan noted that in addition to Hannes' admissions, he has always retained some scepticism about the performance of Germany's Paul-Heinz Wellman, who finished just ahead of him in the 1,500 at Montreal.
Coghlan said that while he would happily accept a retroactive bronze medal, he isn't about to lead the charge on his own behalf.
"Frankly, my disappointment isn't that I didn't win a medal, but that I didn't win an Olympic gold," he said yesterday. "If the Marion Jones case leads to Frank re-opening his, that would be great, but it wouldn't be up to me to fight for a medal. That would be up to the Olympic Council of Ireland - and they've never seemed particularly interested in pursuing it in the past."
