Late last month, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced a number of changes to their policy — the main one being increasing the threshold levels for certain substances.
A number of fighters have been flagged by USADA in recent years after testing positive with minimal levels — or in other cases, picograms — for banned substances due to contaminated supplements. These levels notably don’t have any significant effect.
UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones was the most notable case while others include Sean O’Malley and most recently, Nate Diaz. To combat this, the new changes will now alert the fighter for an atypical finding as long as it’s below the threshold. Instead of a suspension, these fighters will go through additional testing and monitoring to make sure there was no intentional use.
UFC CBO Hunter Campbell later stated that Jones’ case was a major factor leading to those changes:
“Jon Jones was a moment where we all sat down and said, ‘We need to take a look at what the science is, as it pertains to the prohibited list.’ And I want to give Jon some credit because he took criticism like no one else has during that case, but everything that occurred in that case turned out to be true and helped result in where the policy is today.”
Jones responded to that quote with a cheeky post on social media seemingly hitting back at all the critics who claimed he was using performance enhancing drugs for years:
“With not one but two biological brothers being Super Bowl champions, could it be possible that maybe I’m just a God gifted artist with a solid work ethic!?” he wrote as the caption in an Instagram post.
What do you make of USADA’s changes and how it was sparked by Jones’ case?
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