RingSide Report

World News, Social Issues, Politics, Entertainment and Sports

Drugs In Boxing…



 

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

An opinion piece from the only Donald worth listening to…

Full Stop – In British English grammar a full stop is a lengthy pause, in the US, you call it a period. In the UK that tends to suggest feminine products. Here it means a period of time where I look at something in boxing in a little more depth. I am typing from my perspective of a fan who watches the sport closely. It’s an opinion. It is my opinion. Don’t like it? There are other opinions out there but if you don’t like it then good, debate and democracy are a good thing. If you do like it, feel free to spread the word.

Drugs in sport – Can boxing really hang its head anywhere but in shame?

There is a likelihood that you have no idea who Joasia Zakrzewki is. Dr. Zakrzewski, to give her, her full title, is a top ultra-marathon runner. At a recent event she was accused of cheating. She had accepted a lift in a car for 2.5 miles of a race. As a former Commonwealth Games competitor for Scotland the news was greeted with some embarrassment and not a little condemnation.

The story ran for a wee while before they tracked her down and she explained that she got lost during a race, saw a friendly face and was offered a lift to the next checkpoint to pull out of the race. When she got to the checkpoint, they encouraged her to at least finish the race. She made sure that she did not overtake anyone and did finish in what she thought was a non-competitive manner.

Simples. Her story hit headlines, people got caught up in it, explanation given, story ended.

It’s a pity that boxing is not athletics. Stories hit headlines, people get caught up in it, speculation is rife, people try and manage their explanations and the story goes on and on and on and on…

It’s not the only difference.

There is a worldwide governing body in athletics, and we do not have that in boxing. Oh, we have sanctioning bodies who give out titles and take fees, but they do not govern the sport.
Even these sanctioning bodies use different testing agencies for athletes. At various times there can be out of competition testing or testing done randomly or even not at all.
If you have never heard of Joasia Zakrzewki, then you have certainly heard of Amir Khan and Connor Benn.

So, have they been treated any differently?

Khan’s story hit the headlines over the last few weeks and was a shock to all of us. He was not a name that had appeared when anyone had discussed drug cheating. He tested positive after his very last fight. 14 months later we found out about it. 14 months – Zakrzewki’s story was done and dusted in a little over 14 days.

Benn was reported in the fight week of his contest against Chris Eubank Jr. and subsequently it was discovered trace evidence of a banned substance had been found twice, not once in his system. That was in October 2022. 6 months ago. It made headlines the world over, saw radio programs challenging what had happened, national newspapers running stories and at least one, The Guardian, delved a lot, lot deeper. Worryingly in what promoter Eddie Hearn called “a hatchet job” he was accused of complicity in drugs cheating and there were examples given.

In comparison, we have an ultra-athlete in a sport, generally regarded as being well run, giving an answer within 3 weeks of the race publicly whilst the athletics board do not seem to be sanctioning because the evidence given is credible.

Credibility …

Given that athletics has had its own doping scandals – Ben Johnson for one – they have had to deal with pretty big questions. Zakrzewki’s defense is credible because it has people involved in it who can give evidence and there is a tracking device which caught her – all of her story can be verified.

Khan says he might have ingested this substance whilst shaking hands. Benn claims issues over contamination around the testing. He claims a lack of transparency means that you cannot trust the test – we think. His defense is wrapped in a 200+ page document that the sanctioning body, the WBC have seen. Nobody else had it until recently when it was believed he had given it to the body who caught him out. BUT the WBC rejected his claims and came up with, having seen his diet sheets, another possible reason for having the banned substance in his system: that he may have ingested it through eating too many eggs. This led to many laughing out loud on the front pages of newspapers and even a well-known pizzeria launching an egg pizza in honor of the claim. It damaged his credibility and, by association, the sport.

Zakrzewki’s response was accepted partly because it had no lawyers in the background, no pages and pages of documentation but a woman standing in front of a reporter saying, yeah I did it and here is why and here are the people who saw what happened, any more questions?

Frankly, no.

Justice …

It may be unfair to the sort of boxing to put it up against a well-run, internationally acclaimed governing body who have the pinnacle of sport at its peak – the Olympics – but athletics have had their fair share of cheats over the years. They have even had their fair share of drugs scandals.

I cannot think of a time when the way in which each of them has been dealt with has created quite the same number of questions as Khan or Benn.

Th amount of time that it has taken for each of these issues to be dealt with is ridiculous. Athletics does not have the amount of money swimming about it like boxing. But in athletics, there is a governing body who oversees things. The rules are equally applied. It means that when there are issues with which to be dealt, there can be a definitive response. There are arguments but you have bought in to the idea of someone being in charge and they get the final say. If you don’t like it, then there are appeal procedures but if you fail, then the decision has to be final. It means people have an end in sight. It is clear and it is transparent if nothing else.

In boxing there are so many loopholes it is surprising anyone gets caught in their net.

In the UK, the premium boxing authority to sanction fights is the British Boxing Board of Control (BBB of C) – it’s not the only one. Promoters like Eddie Hearn, Ben Shalom and Frank Warren may see millions spent on their shows, but the BBB of C has a limited budget. They depend upon promoters helping out with drug testing. The testing the BBB of C can afford tests less than in other sports as a simple number and way less than other sports as a percentage of professional participants. The idea of drug testing is boxing is that when you get to a certain level there is testing. Below that there is not. Larry Olubamiwo, someone who was caught, has told the story of how he was only caught when he was tested for the first time – in a British title fight. Below that level he was never tested. There is no evidence that the thousands of fighters in small hall shows all over the UK are ever tested.

Elite fighters, however, are not tested under the same regime all the time. Take Alexander Povetkin, who has been caught on more than one occasion with more than a trace level in his system. He came to the UK and fought David Price at an elite level and was never tested.

Does justice = punishment?

Khan cooperated with the United Kingdom Anti-Doping agency (UKAD) and has a two-year ban which means nothing as he is a retired fighter.

Benn is fighting with everyone including his own shadow. The fact that he has been provisionally suspended by UKAD and he is unable to box in and outside the UK, as it is a worldwide ban, is breaking news. He refuses to appear before the BBB of C and clear his name. The 200 plus page report is unseen by the governing body when he claims it shows his innocence. The strict liability clause – if it’s your body, you are the only one responsible for it – holds sway so no matter what the narrative, the punch line is what was in his system will be down to him.

For the sport of boxing it is nothing short of a scandal but it is one that most of us feel is a continual headline rolling round the newsrooms rather than a call to action to put together one body to oversee the sport and finish this nonsense once and for all. Mind you that could mean one world champion. Perhaps even a clean champion which would discount us thinking about those who have fallen foul of the drugs rules which we have applauded in the ring – the number of current and former world champions and contenders who have been caught with things in their system they should not have had include… Roy Jones, Jr, Vitali Klitschko, Shane Mosley, Erik Morales, Billy Joe Saunders, Lucian Bute, Andre Berto, Canelo Alvarez and Tyson Fury…

Despite some of the issues around the drugs used and what was in each of their systems when both Hughie Fury and his cousin Tyson engaged with the process, the results were a ban but a shorter pone. Khan has also cooperated and whilst he is saying he did not knowingly ingest the substance; strict liability has applied.

Benn is fighting this with all his might. What most people are struggling to comprehend is the victimology of a man who is standing saying that he needs to make a living and is being stopped from doing so because trace amounts of a substance were found in his body and he is not at fault. He claims entire innocence. His further claims that the process has been corrupted and that there is a vendetta against him sound delusional. His claims, however, should be investigated.

His claims should not be ignored.

But his guilt should also be, once and for all, placed before him in a proper place. He has not come out of this well, not just because he sounds arrogant and entitled, but also because strict liability means that he should take responsibility and to all intents and purposes he is not. Until he does this saga will only rumble on and on and on. And that will do nobody any good.

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