Floyd Mayweather keeps imploring Manny Pacquiao to ?take the tests, take the tests.?
Isn?t it ironic that such a thing is exactly what Pacquiao could be demanding of his next opponent?
It was revealed recently, via Twitter, that ?Angel Hernandez,? who has come into Marquez?s camp as some kind of strength and conditioning consultant, is in reality one Angel Guillermo Heredia, according to Victor Conte, the infamous head of BALCO, implicated in the steroid scandal that rocked sports.
By some accounts, Heredia may have been one of the biggest offenders of all. The case against BALCO (the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) actually got kicked off when a track coach named Trevor Graham, who was operating a competitive enterprise called Sprint Capitol USA, decided to anonymously send a syringe from the BALCO clinic to the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency).
Well, the investigation eventually led back to Graham, who was doping many of the athletes under his watch, including Olympic sprinters Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery. And the guy who was helping him do it was Angel Heredia, aka ?Angel Hernandez? who was the man who was actually providing Graham with human growth hormone, EPO and other drugs for a period of at least four years.
At the time he was questioned by federal investigators, Graham denied having ever met Heredia. But when Heredia was confronted with considerable evidence against him, and agreed to testify as a government witness, he wound up giving testimony that contradicted what Graham had already said.
The way he recounted it, Heredia, who had a home in Laredo, TX, would routinely go over the border to Nuevo Laredo, in Mexico, and pick up steroids, which were then turned over to Graham for use by his athletes. Heredia, who is a former discus thrower for the Mexican national team, said he outlined a doping plan for the athletes, including Jones. All in all, Heredia, who is the son of a chemist and claimed to himself be a ?chemist, scientist and nutritionist,? copped to being involved with a dozen athletes, who between them won 26 Olympic medals.
He explained to prosecutors how easy it was to beat even relatively sophisticated testing procedures and how, in fact, he was quite expert at devising methods to beat the tests and thus avoid detection. Heredia also claimed that doping was in and of itself an activity of response; a way of keeping up with what he knew other athletes to be doing.
As he told the feds, ?If you?re at the highest levels, you?ve got to do this to stay competitive.?
At the same time, he asserted that one of the reasons he came forward was ?to clean up sports.?
One of the athletes Heredia provided evidence against was Antonio Pettigrew, who got stripped of his gold medal from the 4?400 relay in the 2000 Games as an eventual result of Heredia?s testimony.
About a year ago, Pettigrew was found dead in the back seat of his car, apparently the victim of an overdose of diphenhydramine, a drug that can be found in a number of medications, including sleeping pills.
What?s interesting about Conte?s ?outing? of Heredia is that it was Heredia himself, through his testimony, who confirmed what Conte had been claiming ? that by anonymously turning in the syringe to doping authorities, Graham was not trying to do anything for the benefit of sports but to do harm to Conte, who he considered a direct competitor.
Of course, Conte is involved with boxing now as well. Among the fighters he works with is Nonito Donaire, Pacquiao?s countryman.
What?s distressing is the knowledge that Heredia/Hernandez would, on a dime, turn against athletes that held him in their trust, regardless of whether they acquiesced to cheating or not. Inasmuch as he is a known stoolpigeon, people in boxing will probably be very careful about dealing with him as well, as they should be. He didn?t testify in order to ?clean up sports.? He testified to save his own ass.
Conte says what he is doing for fighters, in the way of conditioning, is free of PED?s. The same could well be true with Heredia/Hernandez, but no one should be blamed for asking some very serious questions about what he, and Marquez, are doing in preparation for this fight, if indeed it would even make that much of a difference.
