The Barry Bonds Perjury and Obstruction of Justice trial took a twist into expert testimony as the government examined USADA official Larry Bowers this morning. Much of his testimony was meant to establish his expert credentials on the subject of steroids, PEDs and other issues related to performance-enhancing drugs. If you are following the trial on twitter you noticed how dreadfully boring much of the testimony was throughout the morning.
Bowers discussed much of his own background and the testing methodologies related to steroids and PEDs. Where it got a little interesting was when Bowers began discussing the evolution of steroids and PEDs from traditional anabolic steroids to The Clear, The Cream, and HGH. You could even see Bowers getting excited as he discussed the ways the new PEDs were able to slip past traditional testing. The point of all this testimony was to establish the foundation for the re-testing of Barry bonds 2003 test that did not initially test positive.
As we head into the afternoon, the government will need to get more to the testing of Bonds but I'd imagine there isn't a lot of direct examination left. When the defense begins cross examination, they'll likely look to raise doubt as to how accurate the testing is given the relatively novel nature of many of these PEDs. While testing is developing for a variety of PEDs, there have been issues of false positives and the general developing nature of testing. I'd suspect we'll hear all about this on cross examination. At the same time, it can't possible be as brutal as the cross examination of Steve Hoskins.
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