For the first time, UFC Hall of Famer Royce Gracie has spoken on video about his alleged steroid use, claiming that he has no idea on where the positive result came from. In his UFC career, Gracie is known for defeating much bigger opponents, and often taunted them for bulking up with steroid. So Gracie’s positive result came as a surprise to the sport. It was in June 14, 2007 when the California State Athletic Commission disclosed that Gracie tested positive for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, after his victory over Kazushi Sakuraba. In his defense, Gracie said that he has “no idea what they are talking about. Look at my first fight in the UFC, I weighed 178 pounds, look at my last fight, 180. I gained two pounds.”

In his statement, refutes the test by saying that his diet and attitude towards his training are incomparable with performance-enhancing drugs. He also added that “it’s ridiculous.”If you saw what I eat, I could live on fruits, I eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” A healthy diet and proper training and exercise do not negate the test results though it seem to be a particular temptation among older athletes especially those engaged in sports that are physically demanding to use performance-enhancing drugs.

According to the California State Athletic Commission, an average person can produce about 2 ng/mL of Nandrolone, while an athlete with hard training and rigorous exercise can have an approximate level of 6 ng/mL. Both of Gracie’s A and B test samples revealed that he had a level of over 50 ng/mL and the commission were informed that the level itself was “so elevated” that it would not register on the laboratory’s calibrator. Because of the result, Gracie was fined $2,500, which is the maximum penalty that CSAC can impose. He was also suspended for the remainder of his license, which ended May of last year.

Bill Douglas of the CSAC commented on Gracie’s result and told the MMA Weekly, “Currently, our rules do not support overturning a decision based off the drug test results, However, Amando Garcia and I are meeting with the Attorney General next month to begin the process of modifying the existing laws to incorporate those rules for the future. Should everything move along like I anticipate, I would expect to see the changes in place by the end of the year. ”

Prior to Gracie’s positive test results, heavyweight fighter Tim Persey, who fought on the EliteXC portion that was seen on Showtime, was tested positive for methamphetamine. He was fined $1,000, which is equivalent to five percent of his $20,000 fight purse and suspended for six months. Also, fellow veteran Ken Shamrock was given a 12-month ban in March this year after three steroids were detected in his system. Gracie however said that his case is different from Shamrock’s. “Look at him from the beginning! I lift a lot of weights, but I don’t look like that.”

Gracie previously mocked other fighters suspect of using steroids by saying, “Yeah, milk does your body good but not that good!”

Manny Ramirez has recently been included in the National League outfielders in initial All-star voting. A baseball fan, Jason Rosenberg, while listening to satellite radio thought of a way to help Ramirez, and this is the Vote for Manny website. The 39-year-old from suburban Ardsley said on Wednesday that “it would be funny if Manny got elected, because he’s coming off a suspension on July 3 and the All-Star game is a week later, so they don’t even have that sort of built-in protection.”The voteformanny.blogspot.com was up and running on Tuesday night and the website is designed to point out that the league has no rule to prevent its players coming off drug suspensions from becoming All-Star. The Vote for Manny website is also linked to an online All-Star ballot that encourages fans to “Remember, vote early and often!”

Ramirez’s 50-game suspension was announced on May 7 because of testing positive for artificial testosterone. Baseball investigators also gathered documents that he received HCG, a banned female fertility drug taken by some after steroid cycles to restart its natural testosterone production. Ramirez is expected to return to the Dodgers on July 3, 11 days before the All-Star game to be held in St. Louis. In the initial votes, Ramirez showed a lot of potential as he garnered 442,763 ballots, trailing Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun (663,164), and Chicago Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano (545, 354) and the New York Mets’ Carlos Beltran (476, 843).

Philadelphia’s NL Manager Charlie Manuel said “the All-Star game is for the fans and I think that if he got voted in, then it would be appropriate for him to play. Once he serves his suspension, he’s paid his penalty and he’s just like every other player.” But Cardinals’ manager Tony La Russa has a completely opposite opinion as Manuel’s by saying, “The fans have a right to vote, but I think it’s probably not fair to the guys who are out there playing,” he said. “It’s pretty tough to do what he did and then miss a good part of the season. But it’s up to the fans.”

Voting for the All-Star started on April 22 so it is still uncertain on how many votes were cast for Ramirez before his suspension. The drug agreement of the league states “a player shall be deemed to have been eligible to play in the All-Star game if he was elected or selected to play; the commissioner’s office shall not exclude a player from eligibility for election or selection because he is suspended under the program.”

Yankee’s Alex Rodriguez, another steroid-tainted athlete, was also among the third basemen by garnering 245,414 votes, trailing Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria (664,060) and Texas’ Michael Young (296,025). “It would be too interesting, too funny, too pick-your-adjective to see Manny get elected,” Rosenberg said. “It’s got to be MLB’s nightmare that the two biggest stars who have implicated themselves or gotten implicated by this are now potentially starting in their signature midsummer moment.”

Rosenberg is an avid Yankees fan and works in finance. He also maintains a regular blog for baseball that he started more than a year ago. He is also not in favor of the 2003 rule change pushed by Commissioner Bud Selig that provides the All-Star winner home-field advantage in the World Series.

Australia’s triple world kayaking champion, Nathan Baggaley says that his 2005 steroid suspension from the sport led him to deal in drugs. He now awaits sentencing in Lismore District Court after he pleads guilty for distributing and selling 1509 ecstasy tablets in late 2007. His lawyer John Weller said that the dual Olympian had not recovered much after the ban in 2005 for his steroid use. “From becoming a world champion, becoming an award winner…he’d done nothing else,” the lawyer said. “Suddenly his world was gone and he didn’t address the issues.”

He and his younger brother Dru Baggaley, have spent more than 18 years behind bars following their arrest as a result of a covert cross-boarder operation targeting the supply of ecstasy on NSW’s north coast. The police operation has seized at least 13,500 pills, $62, 520 of drug money and a quantity of powder that can produce more than 160,000 tablets. The police also found an industrial pill press at Nathan Baggaley’s Byron Bay Home.

Col McPherson, the Crown prosecutor told the Lismore District Court that similar supply and manufacture charges warranted the Olympians’ penalty of up to 55 years or a minimum 10 years in prison. He is also facing a total of three charges, with the most serious being the supply of a commercial quantity of ecstasy, or 1000 pills. “The charge is graver,” McPherson said, noting that it carried a maximum sentence of 20 years. The remaining two charges relate to the manufacture and supply of 509 tablets.

It can be recalled that Baggaley, who won two silver medals in the 2004 Athens Games, was banned for two years after his drug test shows positive for steroid use. Baggaley, from Byron Bay on the northern New South Wales coast, tested positive in September 2005. He justified that he ingested the drugs mistakenly when he drank from a bottle of orange juice from a shared fridge. Baggaley tested positive for two steroids, stanozolol and methindione. He was subsequently banned for 15 months by the Australian Canoe Federation. His suspension was then extended to two years by the International Canoe Federation, and was even barred from competing at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 because of the pending criminal charges.

Weller said that his client was a minor player in a cross-border police drug operation, having “stepped into the shoes” of his brother. His brother, 27, was sentenced in the same court to a minimum of eight years in jail for the manufacture and supply of the same drug. Baggaley admitted to “helping out” with drug deals while his younger brother was out of town. He is facing up to 55 years in prison over the three charges. With time already served, Baggaley will be eligible for parole on Nov. 20, 2012.

“It’s been a hard comedown from being a world champion, a revered person in his home town, internationally and nationally, to someone who has been completely vilified,” Weller said. The sentencing hearing continues before Judge James Black.

Baggaley also won gold medals in the K1 class at the world championships in 2002, 2003, and 2005.

The Partnership for Clean Competition (PCC) made a big announcement on the awarding of the very first-anti doping research grant. This is in relation to the formation of the collaborative research in 2008. J. Thomas Brenna, Ph.D., of Cornell University is the recipient of the $500,000. The grant proposal is entitled, “Characterization of the Human Urinary Steroidome for Anti-Doping Applications.” The PPC was founded by collaborative agencies and organizations including the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Football League (NFL). The organization pledges to hand out periodic grants to scientists conducting anti-doping research.

Brenna’s research aims to describe the entire steroid profile in urine using comprehensive two dimensional gas chromatography/time of flight mass spectrometry. This research will reveal the use of synthetic steroids such as designer steroids. The researcher also plans to extend steroid separation approach to carbon isotope ratio testing which can verify whether the steroid is natural or synthetic. “In selecting Dr. Brenna as our first grant recipient, the PCC and this country’s major sports organizations have collectively taken a major step forward in supporting high-level anti-doping research,” said USO Acting Chief Executive Officer and PCC Board of Governors Chairperson Stephanie Streeter. She also added the research has a great potential in maximizing the sample throughput and detection limits. This way, it would be very useful to sports entities in enhancing its existing testing techniques. “We are impressed by Brenna’s research and look forward to his finding and recommendations over the next several years,” she explained.

Meanwhile, Brenna feels honored that the PCC has selected the Cornell University laboratory as the very first grant recipient. “Our research group looks forward to the opportunity to contribute to the important efforts of the PCC to maintain the integrity of sports.”

For the second round of grant funding, the PCC is now accepting applications to interested groups or individuals. Pre-applications are due by July 1 of this year. Applicants who will be selected will be asked to fill out a full application by August 2009. PCC will be conducting three grand application rounds each year. Each application will be reviewed by the PCC’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which is mainly composed of internationally-recognized experts and is headed by USADA Chief Officer Larry Bowers, Ph.D.

PCC will be supporting researches that has a great potential of resulting in methods or products that will maximize the anti-doping field and guarantee the integrity in sport. It is also expected that Brenna’s research would advance the current testing methods by enabling a broader analysis of urinary samples for steroids.

“The approach proposed by Brenna shifts targeted identification requirements to a non-targeted analysis of all urinary steroid,” Bowers said. “The technique hopefully will enable the detection of previously uncharacterized or unknown designer steroids in urine. In addition, this technique has the potential to broaden CIR testing.”

To those interested to apply for the PCC funding, pertinent information can be found at www.cleancompetition.org. The National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and the PGA Tour are also supporting the PCC.

Tampa Bay Online reported that Richard Thomas, a man arrested in Florida for possession of anabolic steroids, bragged to authorities that he has sold the said performance-enhancing drugs to athletes of the Washington Capitals and Washington Nationals. According to the report, the investigators are still unsure if Thomas is telling the truth when he confessed that he is central Florida’s biggest steroid provider and even sold to professional athletes. Thomas however, did not drop the names of athletes. Thomas’ and his wife’s arrest was announced by Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd in a news conference. Judd also added that detectives were able to seize a total of $200,000 worth of illegal steroids. Police are still wary about the pending further investigation because Thomas is not telling how many clients he had, or if he had the high-profile clients which he claims. No further evidence is present at this time to support Thomas’ statements.

“The only thing he said specifically was he sold to the Washington Capitals and the Washington Nationals,” Judd explained. “We asked him because we knew that would create a firestorm on two occasions because we don’t want to be quoted as saying that. Richard Thomas told us that he sold steroids to ballplayer on those teams. Now, is that one ballplayer? Or is it two ballplayers? We don’t know.”

Tampa Bay Online also reported that the couple is facing several charges including 10 counts of possession of anabolic steroids with the intent to sell and deliver, one count of possession of firearm in commission of a felony, 10 counts of importation of anabolic steroids into the state of Florida and a single count of maintaining residence for selling drugs. The report also disclosed that law enforcement officials are planning to investigate on the claims of Thomas that he indeed sold drugs to Capitals and Nationals and to other professional athletes as well.

Meanwhile, the National Hockey League and the Capitals released statements on the allegations of Thomas. The statement says that “the Washington Capitals have no knowledge on any aspect of this allegation. Capital players were subjected to no-notice testing three times in each of the past two seasons pursuant to the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and there was no indication of any improper conduct or wrongdoing.”

Former Capitals defenseman Steve Eminger also reacted to Thomas’ claims. He played in Washington from 2002-2008 and is now a member of the Panthers and also had a short stint with the Lightning. “It’s pretty shocking. I never once heard—I’m not just talking about the Capitals, I’m talking about hockey in general,” he said.

Brook Laich, NHL Player’s Association representative for the Caps, on the other hand said that he had no idea of the steroids report. He is also not worried and does not think that any of the Caps’ guys have used steroids or have tested positive for it. Laich also added that he can honestly say that he has never seen a trace of steroids, from bantam to midget to junior. “I have never heard of a guy take a steroid, and I’ve never seen a guy take a steroid.”

Roger Clemens wants to address his steroid issue but he can’t seem to find time. He offered to field questions from the viewers of Houstonist two weeks ago, after the release of the “American Icon, the Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America,” but the website’s editor and the former Yankee still have not hashed out the logistics of the Q&A session. Jason Bargas, the editor, said that when he talked to Clemens this week about something, the Rocket told him that he was really busy but still committed to the Q&A round. The steroid-tainted star also suggested the editor to send him questions which he would answer during minutes of downtime in his schedule. Clemens has just returned from a Scotland vacation and told Bargas that he will now be working with minor league players in the next weeks.

Bargas claims that he wants a sit-down with Clemens and he also wants to be there when Clemens reads and answers the questions. Also, Bargas wants to ask follow-up questions of his own and hopes to schedule something with Clemens soon to get things started. Clemens became the target of the federal jury investigation after he denied the accusations of steroid and human growth hormone use during the 2008 congressional hearing. Because of his denial, he was widely criticized for his response to the release of the American Icon book. The book, which was authored by the Daily News sports investigative team, is gathered from interviews from different sources including the people coming from the camp of Clemens. The seven-time Cy Young awardee is also aware of much of the materials found in the book and is already prepared on his response.

Clemens has been mum about the steroid use allegations 15 months after the hearing. According to the Houstonist, Clemens contacted the website and in an email, he said that he knows “a lot of baseball fans read the Houstonist and they have asked questions about the false allegations against me. I welcome the chance to answer the question of your readers.” Jen Chung, the co-founder of the Gothamist LLC, Houstonist’s New York-based company, said her staff first thought that it was just a prank. But they were able to confirm that the former pitcher of the Yankees was the one who sent an email through a call to the Roger Clemens Foundation. Chung also said that Clemens must be trying to influence the opinion of its readers and the public by leapfrogging over the mainstream media and reaching out to fans. Gene Grabowski, a crisis management expert who advises Clemens, told The News that it was Clemen’s idea to reach out to fans through Houstonist. “Roger is doing that himself,” said Grabowski who also appeared on ESPN Radio to defend the Rocket.

The Houstonist audience however does not seem too eager to throw the Rocket baseball questions. “Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if you just apologized and moved on?” wrote one Houstonist poster. “There isn’t any real way you can prove a negative, and virtually everyone who cares has already formed their opinion. You aren’t going to change it. “You’re only digging yourself in deeper every time you speak about it. Swallow your pride, issue a vague apology and let’s all move on.”