Lesnar team looking at foot cream, eye medication as source of test failure

Before their fight at UFC 200, heavyweight Mark Hunt warned that opponent Brock Lesnar was taking performance enhancing drugs. Under current USADA regulations, a fighter returning to the UFC is required to go through a four-month waiting period while they are tested for PEDs. However, as Lesnar left the UFC before the advent of USADA, he was allowed to fight without being tested for months.

Then Lesnar tested positive for the banned estrogen blocker clomiphene. The drug is not notably performance enhancing on its own, but would typically be taken at the end of a cycle to restore normal functioning. However, because it takes time for tests to come back unless they are expedited, the results came back after the fight was over, and Lesnar had won.

Although USADA categorizes clomiphene and its metobiltes as specified substances due to the greater likelihood of a credible non-doping explanation for a test failure, Hunt was enraged. Lesnar vowed toget to the bottom of it all, and a former sparring partner suggested that it could have been caused by the asthma inhaler Advair.

Now Steven Marrocco for MMAjunkie reports that Lesnar reps tested eye medication and foot cream as possible sources of the test failure.

We are still investigating this matter (which investigation includes the ongoing testing of products used by Mr. Lesnar prior to the date of the positive test), wrote Howard Jacobs, a prominent anti-doping attorney representing Lesnar, in a letter dated Sept. 19. To provide further detail, I am advised that the testing laboratory (Korva Labs) initially tested an eye medication, which was negative for either clomiphene or clomiphene metabolites. Subsequent testing has been conducted on a foot cream; that testing has included three separate extraction attempts, all of which have failed. A fourth extraction attempt is being made by Korva Labs this week.

As you may be aware, testing of such creams can be a difficult process, as the extraction process can be significantly complicated by both a complex matrix and interfering substances. Until a successful extraction can be accomplished, this product cannot be tested for contamination with clomiphene or clomiphene metabolites. For this reason, the extraction failures to date provide no indication as to whether or not this cream is contaminated with clomiphene or clomiphene metabolites.

So they can’t demonstrate that the foot cream was the source of the test failure, but they can’t show that it wasn’t, either.

Jacobs was petitioning for more time to get to the bottom of the issue.

I assure you that we have been diligent in our investigation and testing, and that the requested delay is not being sought for any improper purpose,” he wrote. “If the hearing can be rescheduled to a mutually agreeable date in November, I am confident that we can be prepared so that the case can be heard on the merits at that time.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission eventually granted Lesnar’s team a continuance.