12/21/24
July 09, 2011
Anthony Galea’s path from treating superstars to pleading guilty : There was a time when Anthony Galea was on the front lines in the war against doping in sport. When disgraced Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson made his comeback in 1991, Dr. Galea was there as a certified doping-control officer, watching over him while he peed into a vial. He once issued a public warning to Toronto parents about the torrent of steroids flowing through high-school locker rooms. He has railed against the win-at-all-costs attitude ruining sport, saying “that’s why there is an increasing use of drugs to enhance performance.” Yet this week, Dr. Galea stood before a U.S. District Court judge and uttered “guilty” to the charge that he repeatedly carried misbranded drugs across the U.S.-Canada border, and admitted in an agreed statement of facts that he smuggled restricted drugs, including human growth hormone, to professional football and baseball players. Now the 51-year-old father of seven could go to prison after acknowledging that he crisscrossed the United States, met athletes in their homes and in hotel rooms, and practised medicine without an American licence. It has threatened to ruin his career, the end of a remarkable arc that saw him go from a Toronto strip mall to the Toronto Argonauts clubhouse to making house calls for golfer Tiger Woods, former NFL rushing leader Jamal Lewis and baseball slugger Alex Rodriguez.
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