Just two days ahead of the scheduled UFC 235 card which will be headlined by UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and Anthony Smith at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Jones’ UFC 235 drug tests shows two-adverse findings of turinabol metabolite in his system.
This is the same metabolite that appeared in his last title fight against Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 232, which led to NSAC refusing to grant Jones’ a license to fight in Las Vegas and at the last moment, the entire fight card had to be shifted to Los Angeles, California. That time Jones had 33 picograms of 4-chloro-18-nor-17β-hydroxymethyl,17α-methyl-5α-androst-13-en-3α-ol (M3) (or DHMCT) in his system.
However, Jones’ recently metabolite discovery won’t affect his fight against Anthony Smith. On Thursday, Nevada State Athletic Commission revealed the results of five-different tests of Jones from the month of February. The testings were done by NSAC, Voluntary Anti-Doping agency and the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
Nevada State Athletic Commission statement on Jon Jones. #UFC235 pic.twitter.com/S9J38gvihI
— Chamatkar Sandhu (@SandhuMMA) February 28, 2019
The test conducted by USADA and VADA had no adverse findings. But the test conducted by NSAC on 14th Feb and 15th Feb had adverse analytical findings with one detecting 40 pg/mL and the other 20 pg/mL respectively.
Dr Daniel Eichner, President and Laboratory Director of the Sports Medicine and Research Laboratory (SMRTL) reviewed those results and according to him, there was no evidence of any re-administration of PEDs in Jones’ system and that due to the amount of substance found in Jones’ system, he would hold no unfair advantage over his opponent Anthony Smith. NSAC’s statement read. “Mr Jones will continue to be subject to random drug testing and monitoring so as to assure his continued compliance.”
Last month when it was reported that an M3 metabolite has been found in Jones’ system on fight day, UFC vice president of athlete health and performance Jeff Novitzky wasn’t surprised by it.
“Once again, there was no parent compound and none of the short- or medium-term metabolites, which tend to stick around for three or weeks. So this is even more indicative that for whatever reason this long-term metabolite is just hanging around in these tissues and they get expressed when you’re going through weight loss.” Novitzky said
Even today Jeff Novizky appeared before the media today and he said that M3 metabolite found in his system is actually good news, since despite being under rigorous testing by multiple anti-doping agencies, he was still found with M3 metabolite in his system and that it is only a pulsing effect from the PED which was injested back in 2017 at UFC 214 in which Jones admitted that he didn’t injest in knowingly and in that fight he stopped Daniel Cormier, but the result was later overturned into an NC and Jones was suspended for 15 months.
“You have two very low-level picogram positives book-ended by two negative tests within a week and a week and a half,” Novitzky said. “If there was re-administration of this substance, you would clearly see a parent compound, you’d see short- and mid-term metabolites, which science has shown to be in existence for several weeks. Again, it’s unfortunate for Jon, but based on the levels of amount of testing, it’s the best evidence I’ve seen.”
What are your thoughts on this whole Jon Jones’ drug-testing saga?
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Jon Jones tests positive for the same T3 metabolite in his UFC 232 VADA test
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