IT WAS past midnight on Sunday when Trevor Graham stood in the bowels of the Olympic stadium, basking in another triumph of coaching. This is the man who produced Marion Jones, who turned Tim Montgomery into the world record-holder and, with Justin Gatlin, had just added the Olympic 100 metres champion to his list of successes after the 22-year-old had left a field that included Maurice Greene trailing in his wake to win in 9.85 seconds.
So this was the question: “Do you think that Justin would have won gold if you had not sent that syringe to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA)?” There are ways and means of producing champions, both legal and not, but Graham has come up with something new: he went and shopped the opposition. It was Graham who, anonymously, sent the syringe of THG, the designer steroid, to the USADA, thus setting off the entire Balco pharmacy investigation. In so doing, he got THG banned and effectively got Dwain Chambers and Montgomery (no longer his athlete) removed from the equation. It was a stroke of genius.
In answer to the question, Graham confirmed for the first time that he was the whistle-blower and said: “I don’t know. You can’t predict what would have happened otherwise. I was just the coach doing the right thing at the right time. No regrets.”
Graham has helped to clean up his sport but he also appears to have blown the whistle on himself. He kicked off the Balco inquiry and, as a result, a whole load of his own athletes came tumbling out in the dirty wash. As well as Jones and Montgomery, Alvin and Calvin Harrison and Michelle Collins have been implicated. All have been, or are, coached by Graham. He has the astonishing record of having had six athletes test positive.
Under the proposals of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), Graham would probably be serving a ban. Wada intends to start going after the coaches of accused athletes. With six offences, Graham may be trying their patience.
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He may cruise serenely through the whole episode, though, because his co-operation in the Balco investigation involved a deal whereby he has been given partial immunity. It is in the detail of this deal that his future may hang.
Either way, he has produced both an Olympic champion and a sizeable body of negative evidence. The former may be discredited by the latter, but Graham, a Jamaican wary of limelight, has been quiet as the drugs storm has raged around him.
“People can go and talk,” he said on the eve of the Games, “but I didn’t want to say too much to be a distraction to my athletes. I didn’t want to come out until after the Games. I’ll pretty much say something after all this is over.”
So observers stand by. Graham has a reputation for producing champions; he has another reputation that he needs to defend.