The Ultimate Fighting Championship signed a deal with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to help clean the sport of mixed martial arts and rid the octagon of performance enhancing drugs. Fighters who are on the active UFC roster are subjected to random drug tests, and lightweight Felipe Olivieri was flagged last year for a potentially failed test.
Olivieri tried to fight the suspension, but USADA recently announced that they would be suspending Olivieri from competition for two years. Olivieri tested positive for methyltestosterone metabolites in an out-of-competition drug test in 2016. USADA released the following statement which you can read in its entirety here:
“Olivieri contested the asserted doping offense by arguing that the laboratory results for his urine sample should be disregarded based on alleged breaches of the chain of custody and an alleged lack of competency by the testing laboratory. In rejecting the athlete’s claims, the Arbitrator concluded that Olivieri failed to establish that the sample chain of custody and analysis, which was conducted by the WADA-
accredited laboratory in Rio de Janeiro, had been compromised. Because Olivieri did not present any mitigating evidence with respect to his level of fault during the appeal process, the Arbitrator imposed the standard period of ineligibility for Olivieri’s doping offense.
Olivieri’s two-year period of ineligibility began on March 10, 2016, the date of his provisional suspension.”
