Tainted Test Case

The alarm clock is set for 6 a.m., giving Kicker Vencill time for two eggs and a piece of toast with peanut butter before he leaves his apartment.

The U.S. Olympic swim trials are only a few months off, and he should be headed for the pool or the weight room, should be ramping up his workouts. Instead, he drives a few miles down the road to Home Depot. The hardware section.

Rather than slipping into a swimsuit and goggles, he ties on an orange apron that reads, “Hi, I’m Kicker.”

“It’s kind of humbling,” he says.

The 25-year-old freestyler -- darkly handsome and sleek from a lifetime of training -- is in this predicament after testing positive for steroids last year.

This isn’t like the much-publicized BALCO case, in which investigators found discarded syringes and coded e-mails, and prosecutors have charged four men with conspiring to distribute steroids illegally to dozens of high-profile athletes.

Vencill says the substance for which he tested positive -- 19-norandrosterone -- had somehow found its way into a multivitamin he was taking.

As far-fetched as that might sound, contaminated supplements are a growing problem in sports. Traces of banned substances are turning up in everything from zinc tablets to protein powders. After hearing evidence, authorities believe his story.

Still, they gave him a two-year suspension, which is a critical blow for an athlete his age. Vencill’s case illustrates the complexity involved in trying to clean up sports.

“People think this is a black-and-white issue,” he says. “It’s not.”

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It seemed more straightforward only a few years ago, when the U.S. promised to get tough on what many experts saw as rampant doping in Olympic sports.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was established -- funded largely by federal grants, independent of the governing bodies that oversee amateur athletics -- to administer testing and sanctions. Since then, the agency has caught dozens of athletes cheating.

A weightlifter is suspended for three months for using pseudoephedrine. A cyclist gets a year for marijuana. A pole vaulter gets two years for amphetamines.

Although these cases rarely make headlines, experts have been guardedly impressed.

“It’s a difficult situation,” says Michael Bahrke, a researcher working on a book about the history of doping. “They have honestly done a commendable job.”

But when it comes to contaminated supplements, Bahrke says, “that is really a blurred area.”

The supplement category is a catch-all for everything from vitamins to complicated powders that claim to build muscle.

In 2001, the International Olympic Committee financed a study that tested 634 supplements from around the world. It found that nearly 15% contained steroid precursors -- a kind of building block the body converts into steroids -- not listed on their labels. These substances, although legal, are banned in many sports.

Among products sold in stores in the United States and on the Internet, the figure was nearly 19%.

The levels detected were low, perhaps too low to enhance performance, but sufficient enough to trigger a positive result.

Officials say that otherwise benign supplements can be contaminated in several ways.

Some manufacturers unknowingly buy tainted ingredients from overseas. Others make a range of products, including powders or drinks that feature steroid precursors.

If the vats aren’t thoroughly cleaned, residue from the previous muscle powder can taint the next batch of vitamins coming down the line.

“There are a lot of dirty supplements out there,” says attorney Rich Young, a doping expert who serves as outside counsel for the USADA. “You’re playing Russian roulette.”

Vencill says he has learned this lesson the hard way. It was February 2003, and he was looking forward to representing the U.S. at the Pan American Games when he received notice from the agency.

“He came in pretty upset,” says Dave Denniston, a world-class swimmer and his roommate at the time. “He said, ‘This has got to be a mistake. I don’t take anything.’ ”

His blood work showed four nanograms per milliliter of 19-norandrosterone, a byproduct of the banned steroid nandrolone.

Vencill -- he got the name Kicker from being feisty in the womb -- hired a lawyer.

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Four nanograms per milliliter is not very much.

An athlete who has just injected steroids might register in the hundreds of nanograms for several days.

The problem is, when even a few nanograms show up in an athlete’s bloodstream, they could be the result of a barely tainted zinc capsule or the tail end of a large, intentional dose that had been taken weeks earlier. Current tests cannot tell the difference.

So USADA officials say they have no choice but to take a hard-line stance. For Vencill, that meant the same punishment as someone who’d used a syringe.

“We have to approach a positive steroid test the same way every time,” says Travis T. Tygart, the agency’s director of legal affairs.

That goes for intent too.

Like the World Anti-Doping Agency in Montreal, the USADA has adopted a policy of strict liability. Simply put, athletes are responsible for everything that ends up in their bodies, no matter how it got there.

That Vencill might have purchased tainted vitamins from a health-food store had no bearing.

Young said there is a fairness issue, especially when athletes test positive after a meet.

“It doesn’t matter if Nazi frogmen injected you,” the attorney says. “You lose the result because it wasn’t fair to your competitors.”

Faced with more and more instances of contamination, the USADA has warned athletes about the risks of taking even the mildest supplements. This mantra is repeated in brochures and e-mails.

Still, officials say, it often goes unheeded by athletes.

“Most of them are nice kids,” Young said. “But there are an amazing number of nice kids who do stupid things.”

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Like other athletes, Vencill put together a daily regimen of supplements in a wholly unscientific manner. He asked advice of teammates and friends. He took vitamins and protein powder, a sports drink, occasionally creatine.

“Didn’t talk to a doctor,” Tygart says, “did no research.”

Why did he take the chance?

Vencill talks about trying to stay fit during four years of swimming for Western Kentucky, long hours in the pool when he continued training after college with the Novaquatics club in Irvine.

His results, including a silver medal at the 2001 World University Games, kept him hovering around the top 10 American freestylers.

He talks about competitive edge in a sport where .01 of a second can mean the difference between winning and losing.

“You know a lot of people you are swimming against are doing these things,” he says. “I don’t think supplementation is the cornerstone of anyone’s success, but it’s a little part.”

Besides, he took supplements for years and always tested clean. He tested positive only two months after a negative.

Faced with a four-year suspension, he paid a private lab to test his supplements and discovered the tainted multivitamins. This evidence was introduced at an appellate hearing.

Vencill has an honest way about him -- maybe it’s that soft Kentucky accent -- and even Tygart was impressed.

“Most likely, in my mind, [contamination] was the source of his positive,” the USADA official says.

In another recent case, cyclist Amber Neben’s two-year sanction was reduced to six months after she had asserted that the U.S. cycling federation had encouraged her to take -- and sometimes provided -- supplements.

Vencill had only himself to blame.

The USADA pushed for the maximum, claiming negligence on his part.

Howard Jacobs, a Westlake Village attorney who represented the swimmer, wonders whether the doping agency might also have reacted to outside forces.

In recent years, other nations have accused the United States of dragging its feet on doping and, in some instances, covering up positive tests by widely known athletes.

If the USADA backs down on Vencill and other such cases, Jacobs says, “there are probably people in other parts of the world who would say the United States is not serious about anti-doping.”

Vencill complains that the USADA should provide a list of approved supplements or issue an outright ban, but experts say neither of those suggestions is practical.

A ban would preclude athletes from taking even vitamin C. An approved list would be impossible.

“There must be thousands of supplements,” Bahrke says. “They would spend night and day and I don’t know how much money in testing.”

Vencill’s suspension was eventually shortened to two years because of a change in the doping code. An international panel rejected any further reduction.

Having already been kicked off the Pan Am Games team, Vencill saw his last chance for the Athens Summer Olympics evaporate.

“Maybe there was some punishment in order,” he says. “But I’m a good person, and I tried to make good decisions.”

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The next few years might bring a solution to the problem of tainted supplements.

The NFL has pushed for manufacturers to certify their products against contamination.

The USADA and others are supporting legislation that would regulate steroid precursors, in effect taking these substances off store shelves.

All of this comes too late for Vencill.

He has moved to Tucson to live with his fiancee, Beth Botsford.

She is a swimmer too, a winner of two gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Games who hopes to return to the Olympics this summer.

While she prepares for the trials in July, Vencill remains in limbo.

He insists there is no reason for regret, because he did nothing wrong.

Then he adds, “If you test positive, you lose everything. Is it worth it to take supplements? No.”

Part of him wants to quit the sport, get a better job, get on with his life.

Another part toys with the idea of sticking around, at least until the U.S. nationals next year, to finish his competitive career in the pool and not a hearing room.

“I’ve been swimming since I was 4 years old,” he says.

So he accompanies Botsford to the pool after work each day, swimming just enough to stay in shape. He keeps his job at Home Depot and that orange apron.

Below his name are the words, “I help in all departments.” And, because the chain store sponsors amateur athletics, there is one more thing printed across his chest.

The Olympic rings.