UFC Clean Sport VP Jeff Novitzky Defends Possibility That Jon Jones Will Get a Slap on the Wrist for Using Steroids

UFC Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance Jeff Novitzky has gone on record to defend embattled three-time UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Jones tested positive for the anabolic steroid Oral Turinabol in a potential anti-doping results violation over the summer. But Novitzky believes Jones is innocence of purposefully and intentionally using a banned performance-enhancing drug (PED).

Novitzky argued that there was no way that Jones would have used an anabolic steroid like Oral Turinabol that was so easily detectable with the anti-doping tests currently administered by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). The detection window for Oral Turinabol is over six months and only an idiot would have used it in the days before they knew they would be tested.

Once upon a time, athletes could use steroids like Oral Turinabol and Winstrol up until a few days before they submitted samples to anti-doping authorities and still pass the drug test. But that all changed around 2013 when anti-doping research in Germany and Russia created a new method for detecting long-term Turinabol and Winstrol metabolites that lingered for over six months.

“That was a substance where a few years ago would only be detectable for a few days within the system,” Novitzky explained to Bruce Buffer on the 'It's Time' podcast. “Now laboratories have found longtime metabolites tests, where metabolites can be detected four maybe up to six months after use. However, Jon [Jones] submitted clean tests on July 6 and July 7 of 2017. His positive test was from July 29. A simple Google search would show you that this substance, it’s detection window has now moved out from four to six months.”

As Novitzky stated, the fact that Oral Turinabol was so easily detectable was common knowledge by 2017. Hundreds of athletes had tested positive for both Oral Turinabol and Winstrol in the past few years including many athletes whose stored samples were retroactively tested from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics.

“So, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that anybody with any level of sophistication would choose to use this drug. I had to have been used after July 7, or entered his system after July 7. It would not make sense to go to this drug because of the multi-month detection window. So, that would leave me to believe that it was probably from non-purposeful ingestion.”

Novitzky has laid the groundwork to prepare everyone for the possibility that Jones will escape the most severe punishment and receive only a slap on the wrist for his steroid use. 

Novitzky promised that the UFC would do whatever it could to help Jones prove he didn’t intentionally use steroids. If Jones succeeds, it will represent a “best case scenario” presumably for both Jones and the UFC. This means that Jones could return to competition as early as 2018. 

Source:

Taylor, C. (October 6, 2017). Jeff Novitzky details how Jon Jones can avoid a lengthy suspension. Retrieved from http://www.bjpenn.com/mma-news/jon-jones/jeff-novitzky-details-jon-jones-can-avoid-lengthy-suspension/