James Toney Stripped of the WBA Title...

[TMAC951]

Updated: May 17, 2005, 7:08 PM ET
Toney camp does not plan to appeal decisionBy Dan Rafael
ESPN.com


Without throwing a punch, John Ruiz once again claimed a heavyweight championship when James Toney was stripped by the WBA for a positive drug test.

Toney won a unanimous decision against Ruiz to win the WBA title on April 30 at Madison Square Garden. However, Toney's post-fight drug test turned up positive for the banned steroid Nandrolone.

The New York State Athletic Commission suspended Toney for 90 days, fined him the maximum $10,000, and overturned the result of the fight from a Toney victory to a no decision.

Ruiz attorney Tony Cardinale told ESPN.com on Tuesday that he was copied on a letter that the WBA faxed to Toney's camp to notify them of the decision.

RuizThe letter, in part, read, "Based on the actions of the New York State Athletic Commission and the test results on which the commission relied, the WBA must vacate your championship ranking and reinstate John Ruiz as the champion."

"The bottom line is that the WBA followed its rules," said Cardinale, who added that the Ruiz camp supports the implementation of random steroid testing in boxing.

Ruiz released a statement, saying only, "To all of the [expletive deleted] who want me out of the game, I'm back."

Under the WBA's explicit rules "If the challenger wins the championship fight and his antidrug test is positive, and the losing champion has a negative result, then the champion shall retain his title in spite of the loss, and the challenger shall be disqualified and shall not box for the title from the World Boxing Association during the next two years, and only after presentation of medical evidence that he has been rehabilitated."

The Toney camp – which maintains that the positive test result was due to medication prescribed to Toney while he was recovering from a severe left biceps and triceps injury suffered during a fight last fall – was not surprised by the news.

"It comes as no great shock or surprise. It is what it is," Toney co-promoter Dan Goossen said. "No matter what they've got around their waist, it doesn't change what James Toney is. He's a bad ass and he will go out there and continue to perform."

Toney, 36, could appeal to the New York commission within 30 days of the suspension, but Goossen said they had no plans to do so because it wouldn't change anything.

"We admit for his recovery period he was taking medication that metabolized into the positive drug test," Goossen said. "We've also stated that without any question that James Toney, once he was healed, did not take any performance-enhancing substances. We've already stated our case. The question is what would we accomplish [by appealing] unless New York had the ability to change [the outcome] based on the circumstances of this prescribed medication being something solely for his recovery from a career threatening injury? If they can't separate the two things then what are we doing? What are we appealing?"

Cardinale said that Ruiz, 33, wanted to continue on the same path he was on before facing Toney.

"What we want to do is get him back in and fight another one of the champions," Cardinale said. "We would like him to fight Vitali Klitschko, Chris Byrd or the winner of Lamon Brewster-Andrew Golota [on Saturday night]."

This is the second heavyweight title fight result to be overturned because of a positive steroid test. In 1995, Francois Botha decisioned Axel Schulz in Germany to win the vacant IBF title. However, Botha tested positive for steroids after the fight, was stripped of the title and the result changed to a no decision.

Dan Rafael is the boxing writer for ESPN.com.

[BettorsChat]

Nandrolone is an anabolic steroid that has recently caused a great deal of controversy after a number of big name athletes have been banned from competition after failing tests for this drug. These include Linford Christie, Mark Richardson and Dougie Walker (all well known British sprinters), Merlene Ottey (the Jamaican former 200 m world champion), and Dieter Baumann (the German 500 m runner). After protesting their innocence, all were subsequently cleared by their national athletics organisations, although the International Amateur Athletics Federation fueled the controversy further by overturning the reinstatement of Christie and Walker. As well as athletes, French soccer star Christophe Dugarry tested positive for nandrolone after a match last year, and following a Wimbledon quarter final in 1998 Czech tennis player Petr Korda also failed a test. But the fact that so many sportsmen have tested positive for the same substance in such a short space of time has led to speculation that the testing procedure may be flawed, or inaccurate.

The drug known as nandrolone (also known commercially as Deca-Durabolin) has the IUPAC name 17b-hydroxy-19-nor-4-andro-sten-3-one, and is an anabolic steroid (a muscle-building chemical) which occurs naturally in the human body, but only in tiny quantities. It is very similar in structure to the male hormone testosterone, and has many of the same effects in terms of increasing muscle mass, without some of the more unwanted side-effects such as increased body hair or aggressive behaviour. As such, it is being actively examined in clinical tests as a possible treatment for wasting diseases, and to strengthen and increase body tissue and musculature in HIV infected men. In this form it is usually injected in its decanoate form, after first being dissolved in a suitable edible oil.

However, what is detected in the drug tests is the metabolism product of this molecule, called 19-norandrosterone, which is excreted from the body in urine, making it easy to obtain samples. A limit of 2 ng per ml of urine (set by the International Olympic Committee) is the maximum concentration thought possible to occur in human body by 'natural means', and if this is exceeded the drug test is considered positive. Since some samples given by athletes have shown levels up to 100 times higher than this, the conclusion is that the athletes must have been taking extra quantities of the drug to enhance their performance.

Below for comparison, are the more familiar steroid hormones, testosterone and progesterone. You can see that nandrolone and testosterone are almost identical, differing only by one methyl group, shown in red. Progesterone (the female pregnancy hormone) is also very similar, perhaps giving some credence to the boxer's claim mentioned below...

So, if the tests are flawed, what could be going wrong? Many excuses have been put forward to suggest why nandrolone is present in much higher concentrations than it should be. Bobsleigh racer Lenny Paul said that his positive test was due to eating a plate of spaghetti bolognese which contained beef from cattle that had been fed steroids. Although the UK Sport Nandrolone Review Group said that there was only a 'remote' possibility of meat consumption leading to a positive test, the athlete was cleared by his sporting body. Another sportsman, a boxer, said he failed his test after having sex with his pregnant wife! He too, was cleared.

Another possible explanation, often cited by athletes caught with positive tests, is that the nandrolone in their system arose from the use of protein milkshakes and the amino acid creatine, which are perfectly legal and used as dietary supplements to increase weight. But it is difficult to see how nandrolone could be produced from the benign components of these substances, unless they had been accidentally or deliberately contaminated. Subsequent testing, however, ruled out any deliberate contamination.

A much more likely theory has recently emerged from the results of a preliminary investigation at Aberdeen University. The findings are that dietary supplements themselves are harmless and produce no increased levels of nandrolone. Exercise alone, too, doesn't cause any problems. But a combination of both dietary supplements (none of which contain a banned substance) and exercise, can result in a positive nandrolone test. The reason for this is still unclear, but one theory is that there is a link between heavy training, the dehydration that goes with it, and their effects upon the components of high protein diets. Until more work is done, however, the 'nandrolone mystery' goes on...

For a much more detailed review of the issues involved in drug taking and testing in sports, see the excellent article in Chemistry in Britain (vol.36, September 2000) written by Rob Kingston.

[TMAC951]

Very nice write up BC.. Very interesting.. I think i may check into that and read more on that.. Once again thanks for the info!!!