Thursday, May 20, 2010

Mike Mannion, the American golfer whose Myrtle Beach performances have come under suspicion after a positive doping test, has sent a series of emails to MB officials and sponsors admitting to, and detailing, his systematic use of performance enhancing drugs during his career. The emails also claim that other golfers and MB officials allegedly participated in doping. One official shouted, "Asinine", when asked for comment.

It's unclear how many emails Mr. Mannion sent. Three emails, which are dated between April 30 and May 6, have been reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Mannion copied seven people on these three emails, including officials with Bud Light, Ron Jon's Bar and Grille, Masters, and Caledonia. Three people who have seen the emails and spoken to Mr. Mannion about them say they are authentic, although they are unsure how he managed to use a computer for anything other than looking at porn.

Mr. Mannion's charges couldn't be independently verified. Mr. Mannion did not respond to a request for comment, citing his wife being away and having some peace and quiet for once.

In the emails, he expressed frustration about the inability of antidoping officials to clean up the sport, despite repeated requests by a certain MB official to "Clean it up."

From the moment the positive test was revealed, Mr. Mannion has denied publicly ever using performance enhancing drugs, but after 6 beers before the 1st tee will repeatedly brag about it.

The emails are particularly focused on Dorchester and Quincy golfers. Mr. Mannion said in them that during his career, he and other American golfers learned how to conduct blood transfusions, take the synthetic blood booster Erythropoietin, or EPO, and use steroids. Mr. Mannion said he started using testosterone patches, then progressed to blood transfusions, EPO, and a liquid steroid taken orally.

In the same email, Mr. Mannion wrote that after suffering through a number of team losses, he flew to Girona, Spain—a training hub for American golfers—and had two half-liter units of blood extracted from his body in three-week intervals to be used later during Myrtle Beach 2006.

In the email sent on April 30, Mr. Mannion said that in 2006, after leaving Team Quinn for a team sponsored by Derek Byrne, he said he told DMonk, the team's owner, that he had been involved in a blood doping program in the past with his old team and wanted to continue doing so with LMP. He said Mr. Bryne, who is the chairman of Lower Mills Pub, Inc. & Internatinal Man of Leisure Corp., agreed to pay for the same doping operations at Team DBalls. After Mr. Mannion's positive test—which was for testosterone and not blood doping—the team disbanded in 2007. Mr. Byrne and a LMP spokesman, Dan Kiziuk, could not be reached for comment, until 4 AM on a Saturday night at the bar by which time they were just singing Irish songs.

In addition to these allegations, Mr. Mannion's emails called current anti-doping efforts "a charade," detailed how to use EPO without getting caught and claimed he helped former teammate Chris Barbour and more recentlty a mysterious one named golfer, Shiek, take EPO before Myrtle Beach 2010. Mr. Barbour and Shiek could not be reached for comment as one was at the range and one in Buffalo Bill's basement.

2 comments: