The BALCO Scandal Exposed Designer Steroids in Baseball

In 2003, federal investigators raided the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), a nutritional supplement company in California. What they uncovered was a sophisticated doping operation that had been supplying professional athletes with designer steroids specifically engineered to avoid detection by standard drug tests. The scandal implicated some of the biggest names in sports, including baseball slugger Barry Bonds, who testified he unknowingly used substances provided by BALCO. Olympic sprinter Marion Jones and baseball player Jason Giambi were also linked to the lab. BALCO founder Victor Conte eventually pleaded guilty to distributing steroids and money laundering. The scandal revealed just how far some athletes would go to gain an edge and how sophisticated doping science had become.