It seemed we had another Alex Rodriguez and MLB situation after a report was released stating Peyton Manning was one of several high profile athletes who were supplied with performance enhancing drugs from an anti-aging clinic.  Manning vehemently denied the report and his accuser later recanted his story.

The Al Jazeera undercover probe, which was posted online early Sunday morning and aired on television later in the day, reported that Manning was given human growth hormone in 2011 while he was recovering from neck surgery. The report cited a man named Charlie Sly, who allegedly spoke to an undercover reporter working for Al Jazeera.

Manning addressed the report during an interview Sunday with ESPN’s Lisa Salters, accusing Al Jazeera of defamation and adamantly denying that he ever used HGH.

“Absolutely not, absolutely not,” Manning said. “What hurts me the most about this, whoever this guy is, this slapstick trying to insinuate that in 2011, when more than less I had a broken neck — I had four neck surgeries. … It stings me whoever this guy is to insinuate that I cut corners, I broke NFL rules in order to get healthy. It’s a joke. It’s a freaking joke.”

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Sly also said he recanted his story to Al Jazeera when he realized that it had used information he had “made up” to British hurdler Liam Collins, the undercover reporter who Sly said was trying to get into the supplementation business.

“I think I rotated between being angry, furious,” he said. “Disgusted is really how I feel, sickened by it. I’m trying to understand how someone can make something up about somebody, admit that he made it up and yet somehow it gets published in a story. I don’t understand that. Maybe you can explain it or somebody else can.

“It’s completely fabricated, complete trash, garbage — there’s more adjectives I’d like to be able to use. It really makes me sick.”

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source: ESPN