CNN —
Despite having served time for his role in the BALCO scandal, Victor Conte stands out for being unrepentant. The latest edition of Netflix’s sports docuseries “Untold,” “Hall of Shame,” gives him another moment in the spotlight, providing a once-over-lightly rehash of track, football and especially baseball figures who became the focus of controversy over performance-enhancing drugs.
Of course, to hear Conte tell it, the sports world was already rife with the use of banned substances before his company, BALCO, made the pivot in 2000 from supplements to “the clear,” a steroid that had the obvious advantage of being undetectable by testing methods.
Given that, Conte argues that he wasn’t providing players/clients with an unfair advantage as much as simply helping level the playing field, telling the filmmakers, “If those are the real rules of the game, then you’re not cheating.”
The whimsical caper music employed in the early parts of the film rather unfortunately reinforce that mentality, while painting Conte as somebody who professes to take pride in his contribution to sports and adjacency to greatness. Conte might not have stood on the victory stand, but he knows something about claiming victory regardless of the outcome.
Clearly, not everyone shared those views, and “Hall of Shame” makes a compelling case about how steroids made the winning difference for someone like sprinter Tim Montgomery, who shaved his time in the 100 meters from 9.92 seconds when running clean to a world-record-setting 9.78.
“I wanted something so bad at any price,” says Montgomery, one of the few athletes to both admit his use and agree to be interviewed.
Barry Bonds, who broke baseball’s homerun record, in
‘Untold: Hall of Shame’ review: A BALCO scandal documentary gives Victor Conte another moment in the spotlight
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