San Jose (California), May 27: Tim Montgomery was transformed from an unheralded sprinter into the world's fastest man by an American drugs guru, a report has claimed.
The San Jose Mercury News claims Vincent Conte's Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) secretly assembled a team of five, including infamous Canadian coach Charlie Francis, to oversee a programme dubbed "Project world record" designed to make Montgomery a world record-beater.
Montgomery ran a world best 9.78 sec in Paris in September 2002. The Mercury News also reported that Montgomery's partner, Marion Jones, worked with conte for just under two months prior to the 2000 Sydney Olympics where she won five medals.
Besides Francis, coach to disgraced 1988 Olympic champion Ben Johnson, the group included Conte, Montgomery, track coach Trevor Graham and strength coach and former Yugoslav bodybuilder Milos Sarcev.
Four of the five agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Montgomery opted out of signing.



The newspaper said it had seen corroborating documents and talked to sources who confirmed the existence of project world record.



Francis' job was to create a workout regime while Graham, who helped coach Marion Jones to three gold medals at the Sydney Games, worked with Montgomery at the track.



As part of the programme, Montgomery was given the then undetectable designer steroid Tetrahydrogestrinone (ThG).


Bureau Report