INQUIRER Sports

SAN FRANCISCO -- Olympic 400-meter relay gold medalist and world record-setter Antonio Pettigrew admitted doping Thursday as he testified in the perjury trial of athletics coach Trevor Graham, the New York Times reported.

Pettigrew, 40, was part of the US 4x400m relay team that won gold in Sydney in 2000.

The American never tested positive during an athletics career in which he also earned World Championship gold over 400m in 1991 and world relay gold in 1997, 1999 and 2001, as well as a part in a world record-setting 4x400m relay team in 1998.

Pettigrew, who once trained under Graham, was called to testify before US District Judge Susan Illston having been implicated by the main prosecution witness at the trial, Angel Heredia.

Heredia, a self-described steroids dealer from Mexico, alleged Pettigrew and others received banned, performance-enhancing drugs from him through Graham.

Graham, who also coached drug disgraced sprint stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of lying to federal agents investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs during interviews with them in 2004.

"I'm in it now, and I have to face the consequences," Pettigrew said, according to a New York Times report posted on the newspaper's website.

The Times reported that Pettigrew admitted that he hadn't been truthful with federal agents in February 2005, when he was interviewed as part of the BALCO steroid distribution scandal.

"Things coming out in my past that I did and that I knew was wrong," Pettigrew said of his motivation for lying. Later, he said, he told the truth to a grand jury.

Pettigrew's confession means the United States could be stripped of the 4x400m relay gold won in Sydney.

Marion Jones, who also never failed a drug test but who admitted doping when she pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about her use of performance enhancing drugs, was stripped by the International Olympic Committee of her five medals from the Sydney Games, and her teammates in two relay races were also told to return their medals.

Two more of Graham's former runners -- Jerome Young and Dennis Mitchell, also testified that Graham advised them to use human growth hormone, steroids and the endurance-booster EPO. Both Young and Mitchell had previously failed drug tests and been banned -- Young for life.

All three athletes said Graham referred them to Heredia, who had testified on Wednesday that Pettigrew had received banned substances from him between 1997 and 2001.

Heredia also told the court he had been in regular contact with Graham since an initial meeting in 1996 until the middle of 2001.

During that time, Heredia said, he advised Graham and his athletes on how to take the drugs and how not to get caught.

He recalled one instance when Graham asked him to send by overnight mail a cocktail of EPO, human growth hormone and insulin for Marion Jones.

Graham's attorney has said that the coach's contact with Heredia has been minimal, and that Heredia was lying in order to receive leniency from the government, with whom he has cooperated for three years, regarding his own part in the distribution performance-enhancing drugs.