In a recent interview, Jeff Novitzky talked about his experience on leading the UFC’s quest to catch fighters who are using performance-enhancing drugs. This program has apparently caught a lot of top fighters in the last 10 years like Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, and Tim Montgomery.
“I absolutely think I was perceived as this cowboy or hunter that was looking to put heads of big athletes on my wall. That was never the case. Our goal on all of these cases was looking at the distributors of these drugs,” Novitzky said.
This time around, Novitzky is trying to come up with a brand new anti-doping program that he can call his own.
Last April, several top fighters in the mma industry were caught using performance-enhancing drugs. Because of this, the UFC has decided to hire Novitzky and get him from the federal government to create an anti-doping protocol and take over the monitoring of the athletes’ health. In the past, the UFC opted to hide Novitzky’s identity to keep him from the public eye. But now, everything is out in the open.
During a recent interview with USA TODAY Sports last month, Novitzky revealed that the anti-doping program he had spearheaded at the UFC was the best one in professional sports.
“There’s really not a close second after what we’ve put together here. A goal of this program is for other professional sports to look at what we’re doing and to set the bar up high and to bring them up with us. It is unprecedented,” Novitzky said.
For those fighters who cheat, Novitzky revealed that they have learned to adapt since he led the raid back in 2003 on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. This company was owned by Victor Conte; they were the ones who provide both legal and illegal supplements to fighters.
The newest strategy that cheaters use now is “microdosing”. In this case, they use faster-acting drugs which are less detectable by the tests because the drug is cleared faster by the body’s system.
“The goal is always to completely eliminate doping in sports, and you do that by using every known tool in the book and putting in your policy and program like we do. This is a program that I think all professional sports can take a look at and use as an example, to look and see what they’re doing and the possible shortcomings they have in their program and measure up theirs to ours,” he said.
Based on the statements released by the UFC regarding its anti-doping policies, the program will include a whole-year round of unannounced testing, more serious sanctions. For instance, an athlete who will be found using performance-enhancing drugs will be given two- to four-year suspensions. They will also be given biological passport, which tracks biomarkers of drugs over the long term. The vital component of this program is its partnership with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which serves as the promotion’s independent administrator.
“PEDs are especially dangerous in combat sport because the objective is bodily harm. If we see a significant number of positive drug tests and appropriate consequences being handed out to fighters, then their testing program may serve as an important deterrent. I believe that health and safety issues in combat sport have been on the back burner for far too long,” Don Catlin, a leading anti-doping scientist, said.