A new doping controversy has immersed Manny Pacquiao in the build up to Saturday’s fight with Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas.
Marquez’s strength and conditioning coach has an unsavoury past concerning performance-enhancing drugs and the Mexican fighter has challenged everyone to a test.
Marquez, 38, faced questions regarding his hiring of Angel ‘Memo’ Hernandez, who admitted in court in 2008 selling illegal substances and steroids to Olympic stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.
Mexican Marquez, who’s in for a third fight with the Filipino legend, raised a lot of eyebrows a couple of weeks ago when he was shown on TV with muscles never seen before.
Pacquiao’s own strength and conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, sounded surprised how and why Marquez had grown so big in such a short time, saying Marquez must be working with “a good team”.
Marquez insisted it has nothing to do with Hernandez. And he’s willing to take the extra step to prove it.
“I’ve never taken banned substances. You know, when I met him, I knew his background with athletes. It’s a shame, all my hard work, being thrown into the trash can by Conte, by Ariza,” said Marquez.
Conte is the founder and president of BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative), a sports nutrition centre in California and no angel himself. He served time in prison in 2005 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute steroids and money laundering.
Marquez stressed: “My physical condition is thanks to the hard work that I’ve put in. In my 18 years as a pro boxer, I’ve never trained like this, with three daily sessions – running, weights and training very hard in the gym.
“I don’t care what Pacquiao’s team has to say. My mind is focused on making an intelligent fight and to secure the knockout,”
Pacquiao’s biggest opponent outside of the ring – Floyd Mayweather Jr. – made news, noise actually, by saying he’s returning to action on 5 May.
“We’re looking to make the biggest fight possible and everyone knows what that fight is, the little fella,” Mayweather’s adviser, Al Haymon, told Dan Rafael of ESPN. And there could be no other “little fella” out there than Pacquiao. “Floyd made it very clear to us, what he wanted to do. He told us he is looking to make the biggest fight that is out there and to make it in May.”
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