Tipping point: Governing bodies must rise above suspicion over doping

Some weeks before the revelations of Russian doping swept the globe, Thomas Hauser, the venerable American writer, told the story of Floyd Mayweather in the run up to his fight with Manny Pacquiao in May.

On the Friday of the weigh-in, says Hauser, collection agents for the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada), which had been contracted to oversee drug testing for the fight, went to Mayweather’s Las Vegas home to conduct a random unannounced drug test.

The collection agents found evidence of an IV being administered to the boxer. Mayweather’s medical team told them the IV was to address concerns around dehydration. Consuming appropriate drinks apparently wasn’t enough.

Furthermore Mayweather’s team also told the collection agents that the IV consisted of two separate mixes, one of 250 millilitres of saline and multi-vitamins, the other a 500-millilitre mixture of saline and vitamin C, a volume equal to roughly 16 per cent of the blood in an average adult male.

According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), intravenous infusions or injections of more than 50 millilitres every six-hour period are prohibited with some exceptions. The reason is that greater volumes being pumped into the body are often used to dilute or mask other banned agents in the blood of the recipient.

Alarms bells should have rung. They didn’t.

Usada charge for their services. It cost $36,000 (€33,000) to administer drug testing for this year's middleweight encounter between Andy Lee and Peter Quillin. Their contract required an up-front payment of $150,000 (€139,000) to test Mayweather and Pacquiao. Why the huge discrepancy in cost? Who knows.

For 20 days after the IV was administered, Usada chose not to notify the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) about the procedure.

Legal substance

Finally a letter was sent to Mayweather granting a retroactive therapeutic use exemption (TUE). According to Hauser, the TUE was not applied for until May 19 and was granted on May 20. The fight, which Mayweather won, had taken place on May 2nd. In contrast, others rigorously adhered to the rules. On fight night, Pacquiao’s request to be injected with Toradol – a legal substance – to ease the pain in his torn rotator cuff was denied by the NSAC because the request was not made in a timely manner. That may have cost him the fight.

There are strict conditions around handing out a TUE to an athlete, especially for a procedure that is on the Wada “prohibited substances and methods list”.

In addition, Usada decline to use carbon isotope radio (CIR) testing, which identifies synthetic testosterone in the blood. It costs $400 (€371) per test and is deemed too expensive, despite the large fees paid for conducting tests. It is used in Olympic drug testing.

Pacquiao ultimately sued Mayweather for an alleged adverse finding in an ‘A’ sample. Again, this had not been reported by Usada, which kept taking more ‘A’ samples until the problem went away. Bizzare. The case was settled out of court in Pacquiao’s favour, so we will never know. “Usada’s boxing testing programme is propaganda; that’s all,” Victor Conte told Hauser. “It has one set of rules for some fighters and a different set of rules for others.”

Conte was the founder and president of Balco, which became embroiled in massive doping scandals. He spent four months in prison after pleading guilty to illegal steroid distribution and tax fraud in 2005. Since then, he has become an advocate for clean sport.

“The use of performance enhancing drugs is rampant in boxing, particularly at the elite level,” he added.

The questions Hauser asks are ones of transparency in boxing in the USA. Around the world, sports federations contract drug testing agencies to undertake testing programmes for them, be they boxing, athletics or rugby. Each contract may have specifications not included in a contract in another country.

Last week I called UK Anti-Doping (UKAD), which was contracted to carry out drug test during the Rugby World Cup. A spokesperson was asked about the results of the tests they conducted. Stakeholders in the game, including the Irish State which is financially supporting a bid for the 2023 World Cup and pumped €2.6 million in direct funding into the IRFU last year, have a right to know what their money supports.

UKAD have completed their work and their contract obliges them to hand back the results to World Rugby. UKAD were asked who controls how that information is then released to the public. The answer was not instructive. It appears that World Rugby has taken ownership of the results and that’s where it now sits.

Transparent

They were asked if it was appropriate, and a transparent way to conduct business, that a governing body pays a contractor for work and is then handed the results to do with them whatever they believe is the right thing to do. What is the contractual arrangement? The right thing for who?

And how would they feel if it were the Russian Athletics Federation receiving the results, or Kenya, or the Jamaican athletics federation, which has been blessed with remarkable Olympic sprinters who are able to regularly beat the systematically doped Russians.

This all has relevance for the Rio Olympics next year and the chances of Irish competitors like world champion Michael Conlan, Paddy Barnes or Joe Ward.

For the first time the Olympics will include professional fighters. Although restricted to those who have had 20 professional bouts or less, two professionals will be included in the Rio draw in each of the 10 Olympic weight divisions.

A boxer could be professional for two or three years to accumulate 20 fights. Ireland’s Jason Quigley has had eight successful bouts since July 2014.

However unlikely, if an Irish rugby team qualifies for Rio in Rugby Sevens, they may compete against Springbok winger Bryan Habana and All Black World Cup winner Sonny Bill Williams, who have dedicated themselves to Olympic glory. They may compete against Russians who have a strong Sevens rugby programme.

What Hauser has uncovered about how Usada do business in US boxing is that, regardless of reputation, it is becoming increasingly difficult to fully trust governing sports organisations who have skin in the game. It has become obvious that all testing needs an independent eye to be involved in every aspect of the process.

In that light, we look forward to the day the full results, not a summary, are released and shared by World Rugby to show that the game is indeed as clean as they say it is at elite, professional level, and not the worst offender, as it was in 2013 according to collated Wada findings.