Jon Jones keeps popping for trace amount of Turinabol and nobody can explain why, outside of promoter jibber-jabber and some fancy buzzwords like “picogram,” which means UFC is effectively basing policy on science it doesn’t understand and therefore, arbitrarily enforces.
Makes sense.
I guess the people who sign the checks figure the best way to combat the unknown is to plow forward, undaunted, and UFC Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance, Jeff Novitzky, recently revealed how the promotion’s anti-doping partner is here to stay for a long, long time.
“USADA came to us and said, ‘hey, we think you should up the amount of testing that you are doing,’ So we just renewed the contract with USADA and we are increasing our testing numbers between 30 to 40 percent,” Novitzky told Joe Rogan Experience (via BJPenn.com). “Currently, the first three years of the program under contract were approximately 700 tests and starting this next year we are going to up that to around 4300-4400 tests. It’s going to be more of a burden, there is going to be USADA showing up at more doorsteps early in the morning for more of our athletes but I think this is a perfect example that that increased volume in the testing can actually be a protection to the athlete.”
Can’t say we didn’t warn you.
USADA was brought into the fold back in summer 2015, after the promotion went through three consecutive pay-per-view (PPV) events with a positive drug test. Things got so bad, promotion president, Dana White, held a special news conference to address the issue.
That wasn’t long after the end of the TRT era.
The amount of fighters who pop doesn’t seem to have changed. The idea is to help weed out those athletes who are gaming the system, as well as clean up the sport from a tainted-supplement perspective. There’s no business upside, of course, but at least it keeps guys like Jon Jones from screwing up yet another main event.