Fighter Shane Mosley admitted on Friday that he used products from Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) in 2003, but said he didn't know then that they were banned performance enhancing drugs.
The SI.com Web site said on Friday that Mosley used "the clear" and "the cream" from BALCO -- later identified as the designer steroid THG and testosterone -- as well as the blood-booster EPO before a 2003 championship fight against Oscar de la Hoya.
SI.com said that evidence seized during the BALCO raids showed Mosley had blood work done to measure his hematocrit level, the volume of red blood cells, at 44. In a calendar with his file, the date of July 26 was circled, accompanied by the word "start" and the letter "e," the Web site reported. The boxer's level increased to 52.2 by Aug. 8.
"Most men are in the low 40s," Gary Wadler, a member of the World Anti-Doping Association, told SI.com. "Anything over 50 is considered off the charts."
Under the same calendar, Mosley received a final dose of EPO, which stimulates red blood cell production, on Sept. 8, five days before the fight, SI.com reported.
In an interview with ESPN.com later on Friday from his training camp in Big Bear, California, Mosley said: "Unknowingly, yes, some of the substances they are talking about, were being used as part of the workouts. I didn't know what the hell it was."
The report on the SI.com Web site said that BALCO investigator Jeff Novitzky alleged that Mosley began using the banned drugs two months before the light middleweight championship fight that was won by Mosley.
Novitzky made the allegations at an anti-doping conference last year, the report said.
Mosley told ESPN.com that he was urged by a strength coach to become a client of BALCO.
Mosley was subpoenaed in the investigation of BALCO and testified before the grand jury in 2003.
He has denied doping and has never tested positive -- including after his victory over de la Hoya in 2003.
"I didn't know anything about that stuff. It was something given to me, pushed up on me," Mosley told ESPN.com. "I'm a health freak type of guy. I like to have everything organic, natural."
"I'm disappointed that this is coming out again, four years after I've been to the grand jury and gave my truthful testimony," Mosley said on Friday in a statement issued by publicist Debbie Caplan. "I even took a lie detector test back then to let everyone know that I wasn't trying to be an unfair fighter."
Victor Conte, the founder of BALCO, was released from prison in March last year after pleading guilty to selling designer steroids.
"We went out there and I left him [Conte] a check for US$1,500 with my name on it, and from then on I never saw him again," Mosley said on Friday. "But from the beginning I had them contact the Nevada State Athletic Commission to make sure there were no problems. They got the banned substance list and I was told that nothing I was being given was on that list.
Mosley is scheduled to fight Miguel Cotto on Nov. 10 in a WBA welterweight title bout.
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