Each day, somewhere in the world, there is an expert in PED usage who is developing a drug that cannot be detected and that enhances athletes in some new way. That may seem out there but it is simply the truth. As that unknown person works to develop the next miracle drug, the sports science policing community continues to stride forward hoping to be there when that new drug gets used. But winning sport?s drug war isn?t as simple as finding the test that catches that drug. The real struggle is getting commissions, sanctioning bodies, politicians, and the power brokers in each sport to agree to use the best science available.
The conversation about performance enhancing drugs and improved testing has begun and continues each day in the sport of boxing. As recently as 2001, Nevada State Athletic Commission, long said to be the gold standard for boxing commissions, did not test for anabolic steroids. It wasn?t until Dr. Flip Homansky, a former ringside physician and member of the Nevada Medical Advisory Board, educated NSAC and pushed through a new era of testing that boxing joined the fight against PED usage. Even then, the testing agreed upon was so limited it was referred to as little more than an ?I.Q. test? as one PED expert, Victor Conte once called it. Currently in boxing any testing done is on urine samples and save for a few out of competition tests, it is done on fight night. The key blood work that needs to be done has long been ignored either out of ignorance or fear that a major problem might be exposed.
Before anabolic testing was implemented, PED usage was once thought to be simply a heavyweight boxing problem and as such, too expensive and unneeded. Now with lower weight class fighters like Fernando Vargas and Shane Mosley outright caught through testing or implicated in a PED ring, we know better. Still, the myths and misinformation cloud the true problem drugs.
When you hear the word ?steroids? one gets an image of Rambo, likely juiced to the gills shooting his M-60 while looking like a body builder. The PED era of baseball comes to mind; The Bash Brothers, all giant-armed and barrel chested shooting homers into the ethos at an incredible rate. Unless you follow cycling, which ushered the letters ?EPO? and the phrase ?blood doping? into the public consciousness in the late 90?s and early 2000?s, you?d never know ?steroids? barely scratched the surface of performance enhancement. As in cycling, EPO and synthetic testosterone are likely the two biggest problem drugs going. With one adding endurance and the other healing the body at a high rate while helping to increase muscle density, raise energy levels and promote faster healing, they total sense for PED-using boxer to employ.
EPO essentially increases an athletes? endurance by upping their red blood cell count. With a raised hematocrit (red blood cell concentration) level, an athletes? endurance goes through the roof. The drug is used so widely that cycling along with Nordic skiing implemented a 50% hematocrit rule. Males tend to have 45% hematocrit, females 40%. If an athlete tests at 50% for whatever reason, they are automatically suspended for two weeks with an investigation to follow. While it is possible due to elevation or other factors for hematocrit to be raised, if you talk to enough doping experts they will tell you there is no good reason to randomly be at 50% hematocrit, especially if you are well-tuned athlete.
In the past two years, the subject of better testing in boxing has been raised to a fever pitch. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. has employed the services of the United States Anti-Doping Agency in two fights, against Shane Mosley and Victor Ortiz. Cries of ?better testing? and ?if you want to be the best, take the test? became regular battle cries.
During this period, another group, headed by the former head of the Nevada Medical Advisory Board and NSAC chief ringside physician Dr. Margaret Goodman, VADA [Voluntary Anti-Doping Association] began to form. The idea was to create a voluntary program that would not only perform more extensive testing but also educate fighters in both boxing and mixed martial arts. 18m months later, VADA is on line and open for business.
?VADA has been a labor of love,? Dr. Margaret Goodman told Maxboxing.com this past week. ?I have been anxious for years to see anti-doping policies expand. Just like other regulations, advancing PED and PED method testing improvements happen at a snail?s pace. By the time commissions make changes, they are behind the times regarding the methods used by fighters to gain an edge. Plus, little is done by anyone to educate the commissions and most importantly, the fighters. A major problem is that few understand how athletes cheat, what they currently use to cheat and the dangers involved to the athlete and their opponent.?
Dr. Goodman spent those eighteen months educating herself on the subject of PEDs by talking to experts in the field.
?In my investigations, I spoke to many people,? Dr. Goodman explained. ?I spoke with Travis Tygart, President of USADA, who has done an amazing job in making the public face this issue. Don Catlin considered by many as the father of anti-doping has been extremely helpful. I have spoken with conditioning experts, promoters like Lou DiBella–a huge anti-doping advocate, trainers and fighters. However you wish to look at it, few, if anyone, understand the problem like Victor Conte. People in MMA and boxing can remain blind, inadequately protect the athletes that need their help, or they can learn how to find the cheaters and lessen the health risks. Conte was very helpful in educating me on PED use and performance enhancing methods.?
However, Goodman was quick to point out that while Conte has been supportive of VADA, this is an independent group. To Dr. Goodman, in order to survive, the cornerstone of VADA must be its independent nature. Commissions with elected officials can be corrupted or swayed by personal relationships. For the testing to positively affect the sport and remain pure, it must be run by those outside the sport free of conflict of interest.
?No promoters, trainers or conditioning experts, commissions, sanctioning bodies have any influence or role over VADA and how VADA operates,? Dr. Goodman stated firmly. ?That is what makes it work—we are independent of everyone except our own panel of experts listed on our website. Trust me, after working in boxing and MMA for so many years, I can?t begin to tell you how many, including politicians want to influence and control commissions. Often these folks are successful.?
Conte is arguably another name you might think of when the subject of steroids is mentioned. There is no way around that and few understand it better than him. But having paid the price for being on the wrong side of the PED fence has made a positive change in Conte. For the past five years, Conte has spent his time helping to educate commissions, athletes, and anyone else who is in a position to upgrade testing about the dangers of PEDs. He has consulted with World Anti-Doping Association and Major League Baseball among other sports on the subject.
?I do my best to educate athletes, trainers an all others involved in sport regarding the disastrous consequences that can result from the use performance enhancing drugs,? said Conte.
While he has been a vocal supporter of Goodman and VADA since the beginning of this process, Conte now gets to put his support to the test, literally.
February 11, 2012 will be a banner day for VADA. It will mark the first pair of fighters they have fully tested when Andre Berto and Victor Ortiz square off for a rematch live in Vegas on Showtime. Berto, who is trained by Tony Morgan, recently joined Conte?s nutrition, strength and conditioning program. To some, who know Conte?s past, the association is suspect. To Berto and Morgan, the education they?ve received from him led them to not only ask for testing but for the most extensive protocols possible.
?I am very, very familiar with USADA, WADA and VADA,? Morgan told me on a recent episode of Leave-it-in-the-ring.com radio show. ?What I like about VADA is that they have a whole different multitude of testing.?
What that includes is historic. For the first time in any major sport, Carbon Isotope ratio testing, which detects exogenous (coming from an outside source) testosterone will be used as a screening tool along with the standard T/E ratio (testosterone to epitestosterone which is usually 1:1) test. CIR is generally, if at all, used when a T/E ratio is discovered to be too high. Using CIR in conjunction with T/E ratio testing in this way will make incredibly difficult to hide using synthetic testosterone which is fast becoming another problem PED. In addition, VADA will do some human growth hormone testing as well as implement the 50% hematocrit rule.
?We are actually looking more specifically to try to detect even when an athlete?s used a very short acting testosterone agent that it can be detected in their system,? said Dr. Goodman.
Like USADA but unlike the standard boxing drug testing done by most commissions, VADA testing will be random and unannounced within an agreed upon window from the end of the promotional tour to days after the fight. Fighters will have a one hour window to be available for testing. If they are not available in that window, it is considered a missed test. The most effective way to keep a sport clean is to police it 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. If the athletes involved in any program were open to that level of scrutiny, we?d likely get cleaner sports. Until we get there, Dr. Goodman feels the extensive testing along with the transparent nature of the test results will be an ample deterrent. She made it very clear that if someone tests positive, the results will be sent to the commission right away and it will be dealt with. With millions on the line, a positive test before a huge fight could be disastrous. If that isn?t a deterrent nothing is.
?The reason why that was chosen was that it was very important that there be potential repercussions if an athlete was proven to test positive,? explained Dr. Goodman. ?If an athlete didn?t have a pending fight, wasn?t licensed through an athletic commission there wouldn?t be as much of a guarantee that there would be repercussions because VADA is not a commission. We?re not a body that can do anything but drop an athlete from our program. So what we will be doing with any results that are determined, even if they are negative, they will be submitted to the athletic commissions as well as the Association of Boxing Commissions which holds all records that this athlete tested positive, negative or even abnormal results. In which case, it will be up to the commissions to determine what they want to do based on those results.?
While year-round testing is a goal, what is most important right now to Dr. Goodman is the education and safety of the athletes.
?[Year-round testing] would be a goal. That would be much more expensive but that is obviously a goal,? said Dr. Goodman. ?I think what I would like to see, it?s an athlete driven program, I would like more athletes to want to participate in this kind of program and not be fearful of it. After all it?s about the fighters. So hopefully in the future we will have more fighters come to us.?
PED use is often looked at as purely a competition issue. Simply put, it?s cheating. But there are other sides to this issue such as addiction and the fact that these drugs can deadly when used improperly. VADA has a staff in place that will not only educate the fighters but also counsel them should they need help kicking their habit.
?I want athletes to come to us, and this might sound like I am living in a dream world, but athletes that have been using these substances to learn why they are not necessary; to learn that they can still be as competitive without them,? said Dr. Goodman. ?That is big important thing. So we will have to see how that goes down the road. We will have counseling available for athletes on what is prohibited and what is not. And also for athletes who could be using these substances there will counseling available for them anonymously. It?s important that they have someone to talk to because it is hard to get off a lot of these substances. Besides the usual things that people get addicted to, these types of PEDs can be highly addictive.
?I think it is a really important thing to offer,? she continued. ?One of the things you want to do is educate. That?s most important. To me, if VADA is going to be about anything it is going to be about that. The rest is kind of all gravy. Yes I am hoping more and more athletes will want to participate since it is completely independent from anything but I can?t guarantee that. What I do hope is that they will want to participate because they want to learn something and they want to be a part of something good. How monumental is this? What other sport is there where athletes are volunteering to do drug testing.?
That is perhaps the most key factor about VADA. It is a strictly voluntary program. It is possible that we might actually see a fight where one fighter is in the VADA testing program and another decided not to do it. The program is not so much about aggressively outing cheaters but about athletes taking control of their sport and leveling the playing field naturally. It feels less antagonistic than simply saying ?if you want to be the best take the test.? This is not about outing your opponent but declaring yourself clean by submitting to the best testing protocols available.
?I like that VADA is an athlete driven program based upon voluntary participation,? said Conte. ?I will continue to encourage, support and endorse the VADA program and all athletes participating in sport without the use of drugs.?
Morgan feels better testing is essential in the sport and should be mandatory. But for now, luckily for VADA, he and Berto will take the voluntary approach.
?Well, truthfully, I believe that all boxers should have to do that,? said Morgan. ?I am not saying anyone is on anything and I can?t prove that. But I pay attention to things and just based on what I have seen I believe there is some shady business going on. I just want an even playing field.?
So the testing is more extensive than anything ever used before in any sport, it is completely voluntary, devoid of a witch-hunt mentality, and independent of any corruptible entity. What?s the catch you ask? There doesn?t appear to be one. In fact, it gets better.
VADA is a sponsor and donation driven group. Neither fighter, according to both camps, is being charged for the testing which is estimated to cost around $10,000 per person.
Independent, cost effective, free to the volunteer, and more extensive than any testing done yet in any sport? It will be interesting to see which fighter says ?Where do I sign up? next.
Dr. Goodman welcomes them all.
?We would be honored to have many boxers and mixed martial artists working with VADA,? Dr. Goodman in closing. ?This is for the fighters. But, irrespective of the numbers, education is our primary goal. None of us in life can make the right decision without the proper knowledge.?
With the WADA-approved UCLA lab, at their disposal, a staff ready to counsel and educate the volunteers as they come forward, and a growing list of supporters, Dr. Goodman and VADA look to take this sport into a new era of awareness and cleanliness. Hopefully, boxing is as open to change as VADA appears to be.
For more information on VADA, go their website http://www.vada-testing.org/
Writer?s note: It should be noted that without Andre Berto and Tony Morgan pushing to use this specific group, this article may not have been written. It takes courage to take a chance that a new testing group will be able to do as they promised. It takes even more to stand up and take the tests under the scrutiny working with someone with Conte?s past can bring. Some will say he is picking another man?s torch. It says here Berto is writing his own chapter in the ongoing story of PED use in boxing. He and Tony Morgan should be applauded.
