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"The cream" is a testosterone-based ointment that is used in conjunction with anabolic steroids such as tetrahydrogestrinone (THG, also known as "the clear") in order to mask doping in professional athletes.
The drug was made public when the United States Anti-Doping Agency was contacted by an anonymous athletics coach, later identified as Trevor Graham, who claimed that several top athletes were using THG as an illegal performance-enhancing drug. After an investigation, it was revealed that many top baseball athletes were connected with THG; the list included stars such as Jason Giambi, who would also confess to using human growth hormone and testosterone, Gary Sheffield, who admitted using the cream and the clear, albeit unknowingly.
When questioned about the substance, athletes said that the two substances were identified only as "the cream" and "the clear". It was later determined that the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, which supplied THG, had provided it in conjunction with "the cream" in order to increase the overall steroid content of the body. It had been distributed to several athletes by trainer Greg Anderson.
An affidavit from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) reveals that "the cream" was a composition of testosterone and epitestosterone designed to increase the natural level of the steroid testosterone while not disrupting the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, a common metric used in traditional drug tests.
Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), known by the nickname The Clear, is a synthetic and orally active anabolic–androgenic steroid (AAS) which was never marketed for medical use. It was developed by Patrick Arnold and was used by a number of high-profile athletes such as Barry Bonds and Dwain Chambers.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency is a non-profit, non-governmental 501(c)(3) organization and the national anti-doping organization (NADO) for the United States. To protect clean competition and the integrity of sport and prevent doping in the United States with a performance-enhancing substance, the USADA provides education, leads scientific initiatives, conducts testing, and oversees the results management process. Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USADA is a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code, which harmonizes anti-doping practices around the world, and is widely considered the basis for the strongest and strictest anti-doping programs to prevent doping in sport.
In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) by athletes, as a way of cheating. As stated in the World Anti-Doping Code by WADA, doping is defined as the occurrence of one or more of the anti-doping rule violations set forth in Article 2.1 through Article 2.11 of the Code. The term doping is widely used by organizations that regulate sporting competitions. The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical, and is prohibited by most international sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. Furthermore, athletes taking explicit measures to evade detection exacerbate the ethical violation with overt deception and cheating.
The Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) was an American company that operated from 1983 to 2003 led by founder and owner Victor Conte.
Metenolone, or methenolone, is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) which is used in the form of esters such as metenolone acetate and metenolone enanthate. Metenolone esters are used mainly in the treatment of anemia due to bone marrow failure. Metenolone acetate is taken by mouth, while metenolone enanthate is given by injection into muscle.
Epitestosterone, or isotestosterone, also known as 17α-testosterone or as androst-4-en-17α-ol-3-one, is an endogenous steroid and an epimer of the androgen sex hormone testosterone. It is a weak competitive antagonist of the androgen receptor (AR) and a potent 5α-reductase inhibitor.
Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where banned physical performance-enhancing drugs are used by athletes and bodybuilders. Athletic performance-enhancing substances are sometimes referred to as ergogenic aids. Cognitive performance-enhancing drugs, commonly called nootropics, are sometimes used by students to improve academic performance. Performance-enhancing substances are also used by military personnel to enhance combat performance.
Patrick Arnold is an American organic chemist known for introducing androstenedione, 1-androstenediol, and methylhexanamine into the dietary supplement market, and for creating the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone, also known as THG and "the clear". THG, along with two other anabolic steroids that Arnold manufactured, not banned at the time of their creation, were hard-to-detect drugs at the heart of the BALCO professional sports doping scandal. BALCO distributed these worldwide to world-class athletes in a wide variety of sports ranging from track and field to professional baseball and football.
Clostebol usually as the ester clostebol acetate, is a synthetic anabolic–androgenic steroid (AAS). Clostebol is the 4-chloro derivative of the natural hormone testosterone. The chlorination prevents conversion to dihydrotestosterone (DHT) while also rendering the chemical incapable of conversion to estrogen. Although usually used as an ester including clostebol acetate, clostebol caproate (Macrobin-Depot), or clostebol propionate (Yonchlon), unmodified/non-esterified clostebol is also reported to be marketed, under the brand name Trofodermin-S in Mexico.
Norboletone, or norbolethone, is a synthetic and orally active anabolic–androgenic steroid (AAS) which was never marketed. It was first developed in 1966 by Wyeth Laboratories and was investigated for use as an agent to encourage weight gain and for the treatment of short stature, but was never marketed commercially because of fears that it might be toxic. It subsequently showed up in urine tests on athletes in competition in the early 2000s.
The BALCO scandal was a scandal involving the use of banned performance-enhancing substances by professional athletes.
The use of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs in American football is officially prohibited by virtually every sanctioning body.
Since their discovery, anabolic steroids (AAS) have been widely used as performance-enhancing drugs to improve performance in sports, to improve one's physical appearance, as self-medication to recover from injury, and as an anti-aging aid. Use of anabolic steroids for purposes other than treating medical conditions is controversial and, in some cases, illegal. Major sports organizations have moved to ban the use of anabolic steroids. There is a wide range of health concerns for users. Legislation in many countries restricts and criminalizes AAS possession and trade.
Jenapharm is a pharmaceutical company from Jena, Germany. Founded in 1950 in East Germany, the company focused from the beginning on the production and development of steroids. Due to the economic circumstances of the Eastern Bloc, the company initially used a unique process of steroid synthesis starting from hog bile, however this method was abandoned a decade later in favor of total synthesis. Initially the company produced a wide range of generic steroids, including corticosteroids, but later on it focused on anabolic steroids, estrogens and progestins.
An athlete biological passport is an individual electronic record for professional athletes, in which profiles of biological markers of doping and results of doping tests are collated over a period of time. Doping violations can be detected by noting variances from an athlete's established levels outside permissible limits, rather than testing for and identifying illegal substances.
Tammy Thomas is an American former sprint track cyclist, who won a silver medal at the 2001 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in the individual sprint event. However, her career was ended after she was caught using anabolic steroids.
Doping, or the use of restricted performance-enhancing drugs in the United States occurs in different sports, most notably in the sports of baseball and football.
The National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) is a premier analytical testing & research organization established as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India. It is the only laboratory in the country responsible for human sports dope testing. It is headed by Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Dr. Puran Lal Sahu is the Scientific Director of NDTL.
The practice of doping in tennis involves the use of prohibited, performance-enhancing substances listed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The practice is considered unsportsmanlike and unethical, with punishments for such offences ranging from official warnings to career bans, depending on the severity of the offence.