FBI investigates Woods doctor for doping athletes

Tiger Woods risks being drawn into a new controversy after it emerged that his doctor is being investigated by the FBI for supplying several top athletes with performance-enhancing drugs.

Anthony Galea, a controversial Toronto doctor who helped Woods recover from knee surgery earlier this year, was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on October 15 and his clinic was raided. He denies the allegation.
 
According to the New York Times, Galea's troubles began when his assistant was stopped at the US-Canada border in September carrying human growth hormones and Actovegin, a drug extracted from calf's blood which is illegal in the US. The FBI investigation is also based on medical records discovered on Galea's computer, the newspaper reported.
 
Galea is widely known in North American professional sports circles as a pioneer of "blood spinning". The contentious treatment involves injecting a patient with a concentrated form of their own blood in the belief that it helps speed up recovery from injury.
 
In February and March, Galea treated Woods four times at his Florida home after his agents became concerned about his slow rate of recovery from knee surgery in June 2008. In a phone interview with the New York Times this week, Galea told how Woods texted him two days after his first treatment. "[Woods] said he couldn't believe how good he feels. He'd joke and say, 'I can jump up on the kitchen table,' and I said, 'Please don't.'"

Galea told the New York Times that he blames his current predicament on his success rate. "All these athletes come see me in Canada cause I fix them, and I think people just assume that I'm giving them stuff," he said.

Along with Woods, who announced last week that he is quitting golf indefinitely in an attempt to patch up his marriage, Galea has treated the Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey, the US Olympic swimmer Dara Torres and several NFL players. The New York Times' sources did not reveal the names of the athletes Galea allegedly supplied with performance-enhancing drugs.
 
When contacted by the New York Times to discuss the affair, Woods's agent Mark Steinberg begged the journalist not to run with the story, saying in an email: "I would really ask that you guys don't write this? If Tiger is not implicated, and won't be, let's please give the kid a break."
 
Galea is scheduled to appear before a Canadian court on Friday. ·