Untold: Hall Of Shame Netflix: What happened to BALCO, where is Victor Conte now, what did Victor Conte do
If you're a fan of true crime documentaries, then we can wager you're also a Netflix subscriber such is the abundance of content available on the platform - and this August, you're about to get another fascinating documentary to binge on!
Untold: Hall Of Shame is set for release later this month and will delve deep into the shocking doping scandal which rocked the sporting industry.
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Hide AdHere is everything you need to know about Untold: Hall Of Shame.
What is Untold: Hall Of Shame about, who is Victor Conte
The new true crime documentary will last just over an hour and tells the story of the biggest doping scandal in sports history, which surrounds a man known as Victor Conte and his California company BALCO.
Conte was the former bassist of jazz/soul band Tower Of Power, who he played with from 1977 until 1979. However, he is more well known as being the president of Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (aka BALCO), a sports nutrition centre based in California, which he founded in 1984.
During the early years of BALCO, Conte would begin to distribute the nutritional supplements to numerous athletes. After a while, his expertise saw him grab the attention of the athletics community.
What did Victor Conte do, where is Victor Conte now
While Conte has foundations in music, he is more famously known for one of the biggest doping scandals in American sports history.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) claims Conte developed a banned steroid known as tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) with the help of bodybuilding chemist Patrick Arnold.
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Hide AdFollowing this claim, Conte pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute steroids and money laundering and served time in prison in 2005. He landed a total of four months in the federal Taft Correctional Institution in, while he spent another four months on house arrest for the crime.
In 2004, he already admitted to well known presenter Martin Bashir that "the whole history of the games is just full of corruption, cover-up, performance-enhancing drug use" and admitted to running doping programs - some of which even reportedly broke Olympic records, according to Conte.
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Hide AdIn the same interview, he implied that Marion Jones and her partner Tim Montgomery, Dwain Chambers and NFL star Bill Romanowski were part of this, while Kelli White was also named, however, they later admitted using performance-enhancing drugs.
Conte also indicated he was supplying Chambers with supplements after he left athletics to join the NFL Europa, however, he claimed these were all perfectly legal nutritional supplements, provided via his company Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning (SNAC)
He currently operates Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning (aka SNAC Nutrition) which provides numerous nutrition based supplements for athletes. Boxers such as Mikey Garcia, Danny Jacobs, and Demetrius Andrade have all worked with SNAC and Conte.
Now in his 70s, the former 'steroid mastermind' is said to be a changed character who admits his crimes were wrong. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Conte said he ensured all of his athletes are enrolled with the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency, which is said to offer the most stringent PED-testing available.
Since his jail time in 2005, Conte has a spotless record, with not one athlete working at his gym ever testing positive for an illegal substance.
What happened to BALCO
Technically speaking, BALCO is defunct and Conte now runs Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning aka SNAC which he has done since he jail sentence in 2005.
When is Untold: Hall Of Shame released on Netflix
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Hide AdThe true crime sports documentary is launched on Netflix UK on Wednesday 16 August and is able to stream from 8.01am on release date. You must have a subscription to Netflix in order to watch - you can purchase one here with prices starting at £4.99 per month.