Rafael dos Anjos recently has welcomed a very great news by winning the UFC lightweight MMA title. This joyous event, however, sparked a great deal of allegations regarding the use of banned substances among his colleagues.
Some allegations were sent out to throw him out of his game as another fighter coming up to fight for his title. Donald Cerrone has recently revealed that he threw some PED allegations his way.
Since the UFC is now out to get those MMA fighters who are not abiding by the drug policies of the sport by using state-of-the-art technologies, Novitzky says there is another way of telling if a fighter is on PED or not- it’s by looking at an athlete’s visual appearance. With this technique, Novitzky says that it will be utilized to direct enhanced testing as requested by the UFC.
In a recent interview last Tuesday, the UFC’s Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance has revealed the details of how this new technique is used to determine if an athlete is using banned substances or not. Jeff Novitzky said that by looking at the physical appearance of an athlete, they can determine if an athlete is using performance-enhancing drugs or not. This “smell test” will be used by the USADA, or the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in conducting the in- and out-of-competition testing. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has been contacted by the UFC earlier this year to do drug testing on the MMA fighters in the promotion company.
“It’s not random testing; it’s intelligent testing. USADA’s not going to say, ‘Hey, we’re going roll the dice and whoever comes up …’ They’re going to look on everything, from tips that they may get – hell, they’ll even look at physical appearances of athletes. Does this athlete pass kind of the physical appearance ‘smell test,’ and if they don’t, hey, maybe we need to test that person a little bit more,” Novitzky said.
Novitzky further stated the even though the UFC has a target number of drug tests done per year, which is around 2,750 drug test yearly, which a fighter may get around five tests per year, those numbers might gear more towards those fighters who will not pass the “smell test”. This means that the tests that each MMA fighter should get will vary, depending on the results of the assessment by the USADA. The public will notice that some fighters will be tested a couple more times compared to others; some may be subjected for testing ten and twelve times as compared to some who will be tested just twice or thrice in a year. Of course, all of these will still depend on the testing figures that the USADA will release and the agreement between the USADA and the UFC.
“This is strictly another tool to be used. It doesn’t mean that an MMA athlete who doesn’t pass the smell test will test positive, but a lot of times, it does. All is means is a test. It doesn’t mean a person is positive because you look like you did. But hey, maybe an extra test or two. If I was that athlete, that freak, I would be like, ‘Hey, test me more, because people are accusing me of it, so it will be cool at the end of the year, everybody will look at my stats on the webpage and I was tested 10 times and no positive tests.’,” he said.