PET’S talk honestly about the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in boxing.
A lot of people are competing these days to “break stories”. News outlets quote every utterance from Eddie Hearn, Conor Benn and others involving PEDs. But there’s relatively little reporting that puts the recent spate of positive test results in context.
Donald McRae wrote an exceptional article about PEDs that appeared in the April 1, 2023, issue of The Guardian. Matt Christie has written some excellent editorials about it for Boxing News, and Tris Dixon has followed suit on other platforms. But pieces like these are the exception rather than the rule.
So, let’s go back to square one. Here are some basic building blocks for anyone who wants to understand recent developments regarding illegal PEDs and boxing.
(1) THE FIRST FIGHTER OF NOTE TO TEST positive for steroids after a professional championship fight was Frans Botha, who decisioned Axel Schulz in Germany to win the vacant International Boxing Federation heavyweight crown in 1995 but was stripped of the title by the IBF after a urine test indicated the use of anabolic steroids. It’s a matter of record that, since then, of a prohibited PED or masking agent in their system. numerous fighters (many of them world-class) have tested positive for the presence
(2) PEDS WORK. THEY TAKE AN ATHLETE to a place that he (or she) might not be able to get to without them. When used in conjunction with exercose and proper training, PEDs create a better athlete and give an athlete who uses them an unfair competitive advantage.
(3) A LIAR IS A LIAR EVEN IF HE TELLS THE truth most of the time. And a drug cheat is a drug cheat even if he tests clean on most occasions. PED use is difficult to detect. With today’s sophisticated microdosing techniques, traces of PEDs often leave a fighter’s system within 24 to 48 hours of taking them. Just because a fighter tests clean on a particular day doesn’t mean that the fighter is clean.
(4) MANY ATHLETIC COMMISSIONS AND OTHER entities that govern boxing are run by people who don’t understand PEDs and have little or no interest in dealing with the issue. Their testing is woefully inadequate. The adjudication process varies wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. And the decentralised nature of boxing allows for rampant abuse.
(5) ALMOST ALWAYS, FIGHTERS WHO TEST positive for an illegal PED express shock and maintain that, if the prohibited substance was in their system, it was ingested without their knowledge. Then they threaten legal action that will cost the decision-making entities hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend against. So, often, the decision-makers find loopholes and issue rulings that allow the fighters to continue without further sanction. Because the threat of legal action works, it’s used again and again.
(VADA) is the most reliable PED-testing agency in boxing.
