Don Catlin founded the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory in 1982 and is one of the founders of modern drug testing in sports.
“USADA should not enter into a contract that doesn’t call for it to report positive test results to the appropriate governing body.” Catlin states. “If it’s true that USADA reported the results [in the Morales case] to Golden Boy and not to the governing state athletic commission, that’s a recipe for deception.”
When asked about the possibility of withholding notification because of inadvertent use (such as eating contaminated meat), Catlin declares, “No! The International Olympic Committee allowed for those waivers 25 years ago, and it didn’t work. An athlete takes a steroid, tests positive, and then claims it was inadvertent. No one says, ‘I was cheating. You caught me.’”
But more importantly, Catlin says, “USADA is a testing organization. USADA should not be making decisions regarding waivers and exemptions. That would make USADA judge and jury.”
Ryan Connolly is in accord and adds, “There is no such thing in the Olympic world as an inadvertent use waiver. Athletes are strictly liable for what they put in their bodies. Inadvertent use might affect the length of an athlete’s suspension, but the athlete would still be disqualified from the competition that he, or she, was being tested for.”
“I’m not sure what rules USADA is following,” Connolly continues, “but under WADA protocols, you wouldn’t see samples being destroyed and you wouldn’t see retests for Clenbuterol positives.”
In other words, USADA seems to have one set of rules for testing Olympic athletes and another set of rules when it tests fighters for Golden Boy.
“It looks to me like USADA and Golden Boy are making up the rules as they go along,” says Victor Conte. “One of the things that enables them to do it is that there’s no transparency to USADA’s testing for any of the fighters. What drugs are they testing for? What tests have been performed? What were the results? Why is Travis Tygart doing this?”
One might also ask why Golden Boy and Richard Schaefer are doing this.
“I think that Richard really wanted to be in the forefront on drug testing when he first got involved,” one Golden Boy employee (who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous) says. “He knew it would ingratiate him with Floyd. It would get him some good PR. And it was a way to stick it in [Bob] Arum’s ear. But talking with him, I also felt that he thought it was the right thing to do. Then he realized that things were a lot more complicated and, probably, a lot dirtier than he’d thought. And at that point, his priorities changed.”
It would be a stretch to say that Schaefer is trying to install himself as boxing’s drug czar. But he certainly doesn’t want drug testing to interfere with Golden Boy’s fights. That’s evident from his assault on VADA and Margaret Goodman after Lamont Peterson and Andre Berto tested positive.
“Richard Schaefer saw what happened when somebody tests impartially with sophisticated testing methods,” HBO commentator Jim Lampley observes. “I haven’t spoken with him about these issues, but it would certainly appear as though he has decided to stay away from Margaret Goodman.”
Stripped of its rhetoric, Schaefer’s main objection to VADA and Dr. Goodman appears to have been that they wouldn’t empower him in the testing process. He talks about VADA failing to notify him of Peterson’s positive “A” test in a timely manner. But if early notification is so important, why didn’t Golden Boy advise the New York State Athletic Commission that Erik Morales’s “A” and “B” samples had tested positive for Clenbuterol - twice?
In fairness to Golden Boy, no other promoter has made a serious effort to rid boxing of PEDs, or even pretended to. And Schaefer himself acknowledged recently, “I think that ultimately it should be up to the athletic commissions to adopt a more updated drug-testing protocol and really not up to a promoter.”
That latter point is particularly well-taken. The problem is that the state athletic commissions, as presently constituted, are woefully unsuited to the task. In many instances, boxing is barely governed at the state level. Everything has a loophole. Illegal PED users vs. the state athletic commissions is one of the biggest mismatches of all time.
Most state athletic commissions don’t have the resources, the technical expertise, or the will to deal effectively with the PED problem. People go along to get along. No one wants to make waves.
There’s no uniformity with regard to standards, degree of testing, or punishment from state to state. Testing on the day of a competition is notoriously ineffective in the face of sophisticated drug use. But that’s the only testing that most states utilize. Some states don’t drug test at all.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission has long been considered to have one of the best drug-testing programs in the country. Two years ago, Travis Tygart was asked, “How easy is it to beat a testing program like Nevada’s?”
“As simple as walking across the street,” Tygart answered. “It’s good for PR, to give the appearance that you’re testing, but nothing more.”
After Lamont Peterson tested positive with VADA, Zach Arnold of FightOpinion.com spoke with Keith Kizer (Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission).
“Kizer admits that a standard Nevada State Athletic Commission drug test would not have caught Peterson using synthetic testosterone,” Arnold reported afterward. “He admits that the reason the VADA test caught Peterson is because they use the Carbon Isotope Ratio standard for urine testing, which does in fact catch synthetic testosterone usage.”
The Peterson camp, as earlier noted, says Lamont tested positive because of the surgical implantation of testosterone pellets to correct a testosterone deficiency known as hypogonadism. Jeff Fried (Peterson’s attorney) says the implantation occurred on November 12, 2011.
Four weeks later, on December 10, 2011, Peterson fought Amir Khan in Washington D.C. The tests administered by the local commission failed to detect the testosterone. That’s a pretty good indication that PED testing in Washington D.C. is deficient.
California hosts more fight cards than any other state in the country. On October 9, 2012, the California State Athletic Commission upheld a one-year suspension imposed on Antonio Tarver in the wake of his testing positive for Drostanolone.
“The commission heard both sides of the issue and upheld Mr. Tarver’s suspension,” Kathi Burns (interim executive officer of the CSAC, told ESPN.com). “I think the commission’s actions speak for itself. It’s well-known that the commission has among the toughest anti-doping standards in the world, and that we have zero tolerance for doping.”
Not true.
California then turned 180 degrees and, without a full hearing, licensed Andre Berto for a November 24th fight (to be promoted by Golden Boy) against Robert Guerrero, despite the fact that Berto tested positive for Norandrosterone in May of this year. The explanation given by commission personnel was that Berto’s positive drug tests were administered by VADA and not by the commission itself.
“How can they not recognize VADA?” Margaret Goodman asks. “Our program is in accord with WADA protocols. Our scientific director was recommended to us by WADA’s medical chief. We use internationally-recognized sample collectors. We even use the same laboratory [the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory] that the California commission uses.”
Then there’s the case of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Following his November 14, 2009 fight against Troy Rowland in Las Vegas, Chavez tested positive for Furosemide (a diuretic and steroid-masking agent). He was fined $10,000 by the Nevada State Athletic Commission and suspended for seven months. Four of his next six bouts were in Texas, one in California, and one in Mexico. Texas has a reputation for being lax in the area of drug-testing. Mexico is Mexico.
On September 15, 2012, Chavez returned to Las Vegas to fight Sergio Martinez. After the bout, it was revealed that Julio had tested positive for marijuana.
Marijuana is illegal, but it’s not a performance-enhancing drug. Chavez’s explanation for the positive test was as follows: “I have never smoked marijuana. For years, I have had insomnia, so I went to the doctor and he prescribed some drops for me that contained cannabis. I stopped taking them before the fight with Martinez, and I didn’t think I was going to test positive.”
That explanation strains credibility. Chavez might have been better off claiming he ate tainted beef from a cow that ate a marijuana plant. Still, before the NSAC rules harshly on Julio, it should consider testing all commission personnel (including the five commissioners) for recreational drugs. Boxing has a drug problem, but the drug isn’t marijuana.
