JEFF POWELL: Khan ban for doping casts doubt on drugs testing in sport
JEFF POWELL: Amir Khan’s two-year ban for doping casts further doubt on the process of drugs testing in sport in this country… it is high-time for legislative action to help boxing clean up its act
- Khan has been banned from sport for two years after a doping rule break
- However, he was found not to have intentionally ingested the substance
- Case sheds further light on the shambolic state of UK Anti-Doping (UKAD)
Amir Khan pronounces himself acutely aware that his two-year all-sports ban comes at a terrible time for boxing.
The hard old game which brought him fortune and fame is embroiled in scandals and beset by the widespread perception that it is up to its testicles in testosterone, among a whole scary range of performance enhancing drugs.
Perhaps even more alarmingly, this case has shone a yet more searching light on the glacial pace, secretive nature and apparent shambles in which the United Kingdom Anti-Doping organisation goes about protecting sport in general and boxing in particular from drugs abuse.
Khan is in retirement but left fighting now to purge reputational damage to his legacy as one of the great British fighters of his generation.
As he does so, he reveals that he had to keep urging UKAD to get on with testing prior to that last fight, against Kell Brook.
Amir Khan tested positive for the banned substance ostarine, resulting in a two-year ban
The results came soon after Khan’s (left) last fight against Kell Brook (right) back in 2022
That argument does no harm to his defence but calls into further question the entire process of sports drugs policing in this country,
The news of Khan’s suspension comes out one whole year and two months after a UKAD inspector went to his dressing room immediately following defeat by Brook seeking a urine sample.
That follows the chaos which ensued when this newspaper revealed that Conor Benn had failed what turned out to be a second positive drugs on the eve of his proposed fight with Chris Eubank Jr.
Until that eleventh hour revelation forced the cancellation of that fight by the Board, even as the promotion was about to go ahead.
Benn has continued to protest his innocence but the Khan verdict does much to explain why he has not presented his voluminous ‘evidence’ against international testing agency VADA to UKAD via the British Boxing Board of Control.
The standard of liability here is far higher than that demanded by the WBC to readmit Benn to their world rankings.
The WBC protocol demands proof of deliberate intent to take a banned substance. UKAD hold those testing positive fully responsible whether or not they are unaware of what they had ingested.
The problem with that is they take an eternity getting round to examining the test and calling hearings – not least because they are tip-toeing around potential and expensive legal challenges.
Boxing has been in a drugs swamp of late, dragged down by some convictions and even more allegations.
Without doubt, prize-fighting needs to clean up its act. Pronto.
But just as urgently UKAD has to be forced out of its cocoon of obsessive privacy, deliberations which take an eternity and the exercise of discretion to the absurdity of many of its verdicts needing to be leaked to the public rather than announced in public.
The Boxing Board entrusts its doping controls to this non-departmental entity of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport. UKAD is government funded and it is high-time for legislative action to lift the veil which shadows its work.
The Khan judgement may not be as ruinous for boxing’s image as the Benn debacle, even though his profile is considerably higher as a former two-time world champion and an ambassador for improved UK-Asian relations.
He has not attempted to deny or discredit the test result and has been cleared of acting intentionally or recklessly. That assessment by the Independent Tribunal determined furthermore that the amount in his system was so miniscule that it could not have provided any performance enhancement.
Khan has to hope that the unwitting nature of his contamination will not affect overly adversely his huge popularity across Britain’s diverse population. A certain naivety, along with his charm and conviviality, are parts of his pleasingly open personality.
The trolls will be out in force but so will his loyal fan base along with a partial constituency of pundits less rather than more inclined to believe he did this purposefully to himself.
Ostarine is often taken by athletes and bodybuilders to improve overall cognitive functioning
Former world champion was found not to have intentionally ingested the substance
Not that it helps him that so many pugilist before him have pleaded innocence knowing themselves to be guilty – and then found to be so.
The broader picture is the credibility of boxing and the even bigger issue how many miscreants across so many sports, plenty of them Olympic bulwarks, have been caught lying or escaped justifiable conviction.
A specific issue for combat sports is the increased threat to health – yes, and life itself – to opponents of juiced-up fighters.
UKAD has to be dragged kicking and screaming out of its age of darkness. Clean boxers and the public deserve nothing less than transparent accountability.
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