Feature: Testing times Profiling the track cheats

Conte, 54, was also given two years of court supervision for his role in a scheme to give athletes undetectable performance-enhancing drugs.

Baseball star Barry Bonds' trainer Greg Anderson was convicted of money laundering and steroid distribution.

Anderson also reports to a California prison for three months on Thursday.

The childhood friend of Bonds will then spend three months in home confinement.

Balco vice-president James Valente was placed on probation after pleading guilty to reduced charges of steroid distribution.

Disgraced British sprinter Dwain Chambers' ex-coach Remy Korchemny is expected to get probation at his sentencing in February.

Anderson will serve a three-month prison sentence

Meanwhile, accused Balco chemist Patrick Arnold has pleaded innocent to distributing performance-enhancing steroids at a hearing in San Francisco.

The 39-year-old organic chemist allegedly tailored illegal performance enhancing drugs for athletes.

Arnold is due back in court for another hearing in January when a trial date will be set.

Anderson and Conte were also fined $10,000 and banned from owning firearms.

Their sentencing follows a probe into the California laboratory launched in 2003, involving raids by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and the San Mateo County narcotics task force.

USADA accused Balco, the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, of being the source of the previously undetectable designer steroid THG (tetrahydrogestrinone).

The Balco scandal has involved some of athletics' top names, with Chambers and former world double sprint champion Kelli White both receiving two-year bans.

The plea-bargain sentences have been criticised by some anti-doping officials as too lenient.