(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-21 10:08

LONDON - Taylor Hooton was a month past his 17th birthday when he buckled two belts together, fastened one end to his bedroom door, wrapped the other round his neck and hanged himself.

San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds celebrates after hitting his 756th home run against Washington Nationals during their MLB National League baseball game in San Francisco, California in this August 7, 2007 file photo. [Agencies]

An autopsy after Hooton's suicide on July 15 revealed the presence of the steroids 19-norandrosterone and 19-noretiocholanolone in his system.

Hooton, an aspiring baseball pitcher described as a popular and ebullient student at the Texas college of Plano West north of Dallas, had taken steroids to build himself up and compete more effectively in his senior year.

The drugs worked. In three months Hooton put on 12 kgs. But he also experienced the sudden mood switches consistent with steroid abuse, alternating euphoric highs, violent aggression and ultimately the severe depression which led to him taking his life.

His father Don, who with his mother Gwen has devoted himself to campaigning against steroids in schools and who has set up his own Website (www.taylorhooton.org), says steroid use among teenagers is tied up with the American dream.

"They're doing it to succeed because they think it might help them to set up a scholarship," he said. "Taylor was a top-notch student. He, like so many, was doing it because it might make him better."

The tragic tale underscores the forbidding obstacles facing the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in its never-ending fight for drug-free sport only eight months out from the Beijing Olympics.

BALCO victim

In 2007, the BALCO laboratory scandal claimed its biggest victim.

Marion Jones, the triple Sydney Olympic gold medalist, finally admitted after years of denial that she had taken BALCO's most potent steroid tetrahydrogestrinone. Jones used the so-called "Clear", specifically designed to fool testers, before her 2000 triumphs.

Jones, the heir to Carl Lewis as the world's leading sprinter and long jumper, broke down in tears at a news conference in which she confessed to drug abuse.

Her audience, many of whom had not trusted anything she said about drugs after her then husband CJ Hunter revealed in Sydney that he had tested positive for huge amounts of nandrolone four times during 2000, remained dry-eyed. She was subsequently stripped of the record five track and field medals she won in Sydney and accepted a two-year ban.

Last month, baseball slugger Barry Bonds, the 43-year-old record holder for home runs and, with Jones, BALCO's most high-profile client, was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Bonds pleaded not guilty at a hearing on December 7 with the next hearing scheduled for February 7.

"During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes," said the indictment, filed in the US District Court in San Francisco.

In August, Bonds broke Hank Aaron's home-run record of 755 set in 1974 to a rapturous reception by San Francisco Giants fans and a mixture of outrage and indifference elsewhere.

No athlete, not even Ben Johnson who was at the center of the biggest scandal in Olympic history when he tested positive at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, has changed shape as dramatically as Bonds, now unrecognizable as the slim youth who first made his name with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Mitchell Report

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