LOS ANGELES, 16 December 2005 — Tim Montgomery, who reiterated on Wednesday that he never “knowingly” took steroids, called it quits just one day after being slapped with a two-year suspension for using steroids.
The 30-year-old American’s retirement announcement ends a controversial sprint career that was highlighted by a world record in the 100 meters (9.78 seconds) in 2002 in Paris.
“I’m done,” Montgomery told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday. “I never took anything knowingly. No.” Montgomery, who has never tested positive for drugs, gets to keep the gold medal he won at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics but he must forfeit all winnings and results since March 31, 2001.
That is the period when Montgomery allegedly spoke to the star witness for the anti-doping investigators, sprinter Kelli White, about the effects of the ‘clear’ substance on their bodies.
Authorities believe the “clear” is a once undetectable steroid, now known as tetrahydrogestrinone or THG.
“You couldn’t bring nobody in there but Kelli White? And this is what sealed the deal for them,” Montgomery said.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced Tuesday that it found Americans Montgomery and Chryste Gaines guilty of doping charges and banned them both two years.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and CAS based the bans on testimony from White and evidence gathered in a criminal investigation of the California-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO).
Montgomery told the Times that he believes anti-doping investigators are attempting to use him to get to five-time Sydney medalist and his estranged partner Marion Jones.
“I got nothing on her,” Montgomery said of Jones, who is the mother of their two-year old son. They split up a couple of months ago and Jones now lives in North Carolina while he lives in Virginia, the newspaper reported.
Montgomery said his problems started when he became associated with BALCO founder Victor Conte, who is currently serving a eight month jail sentence for his role in what has been called the biggest drug scandal in American sports history.
“Not everybody that’s around somebody is doing what they say that person is doing,” Montgomery told the Times.
“I told the grand jury, they asked me, this guy said, ‘Did you take a liquid substance with Victor? I said ‘Yes’. He said, ‘Are you telling me you were taking THG? I said, ‘No. I don’t know the name of it. It didn’t have that name.
“All I know is I took flaxseed oil.’”
