Last week, it was revealed that there was allegedly missing Brock Lesnar sample on the United States Anti Drug Testing Agency (USADA) website, as the number of tests administered dropped from five to six, leading many to cry foul.
According to USADA, though, it’s all due to a glitch in its system.
“USADA updates the Athlete Test History page of the UFC/USADA website on a weekly basis,” stated USADA spokesperson Adam Woullard in a statement to ESPN. “During an update on the week of October 15th, we experienced a technical issue that resulted in the information on the page being displayed incorrectly. The correct test history for the athlete is one test [that week], not two. The issue has been fixed and the testing numbers on the website are all accurate. We are still investigating the specific technical issue that led to the error.”
Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
UFC Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance Jeff Novitzky also told ESPN that everything checks out and confirmed that Lesnar’s latest drug test came back negative and everything is indeed on the up and up.
“I have access to a more specific database than the public, which displays the date a sample is collected, what type of sample it is and what the results are as soon as they are available,” Novitzky said. “The public website, as I understand it, indicated there had been two tests during this last quarter, and it recently dropped to one. I have always seen one test in this quarter for Lesnar. It was a urine test and it came back negative.”
Of course, you can see why eyebrows were raised at first glance, as Lesnar was given a special exemption by USADA for his previous comeback bout at UFC 200 against Mark Hunt.
After he defeated “Super Samoan,” Lesnar failed a couple of USADA-administered drug tests which were administered prior to the fight. Despite Brock being suspended for a period of a year and getting fined a quarter of a million dollars, Hunt was none-too happy with UFC and proceeded to file a lawsuit against his now-former employee and Brock himself.
Brock re-entered the USADA testing pool after he expressed interest in returning to the Octagon to possibly face off against current Heavyweight champion, Daniel Cormier, in the early stages of UFC 2019.