On Wednesday, The Ring’s Lem Satterfield reported that
Marcos Maidana had demanded performance-enhancing drug testing for his bout
next week with Devon Alexander. (ringtv-maidana-alexander)
Golden Boy
Promotions, who promotes both fighters, readily agreed and left the procuring
of a lab and enforcing of protocols to Tim Lueckenhoff, Executive Director of
the Missouri Office of Athletics and President of the Association of Boxing
Commissions. According to Lem’s story (My attempts to reach Mr. Lueckenhoff
were unsuccessful), Mr. Lueckenhoff has hired the services of LabCorp who will
be collecting urine samples from both fighters before and after the fight.
There’s a major problem with
that. LabCorp does not do anabolic steroid testing of any kind. Though their
law department refused to answer even the simple question of what kind of drugs
they test for, I was able to gather that in fact, LabCorp hands over steroid
testing to another lab, National Medical Services, which is WADA accredited.
But there is still a problem.
Collecting samples for
anti-doping testing is much different than collecting samples for, say, a drug
test to determine employment eligibility. Collection officers must be
anti-doping certified and trained in those particular protocols. In the day and
age of such tactics as fake penises filled with urine from someone else, all
manner of masking agents and the best performance-enhancing drugs money can
buy, the chain of custody part of the process has become incredibly vital. A
certified anti-doping officer would know to make sure a subject goes through
the proper procedure while a boxing commission inspector may not. This breach
of protocol could be exploited should a sample turn up positive.
For example, in order to avoid
things like “The Whizzinator,” which is a product made to look like a fake
penis (there’s a female version as well) that dispenses clean urine from
someone other than the test subject, a certified officer will make the subject lift
their shirt halfway up and their pants all the way to the ankles. The subject
will then face the officer and dispense the sample into a cup while the officer
looks on. It’s invasive but comprehensive. Someone not certified may just hand
off the cup, let the subject go alone into the bathroom and then who knows what
happens?
As they say in the doping
industry, test results are only as valid as the history of the sample.
Yet another problem is that Mr.
Lueckenhoff gave away the protocol of how the samples would be collected down
to the time they will be taken. Any doping expert will tell you that knowing
the window of testing is an important key to getting around a drug test. In
addition, only urine will be taken as a sample. Without blood testing, not
every drug that could be possibly used can be tested for.
What is supposed to be a
precaution now seems either a dog-and-pony show or a sad commentary on how far
behind the rest of the sports world boxing appears to be.
