Former UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones is still in the hot seat after another failed drug test stemming from his UFC 214 win over Daniel Cormier. Jones and his camp maintain his innocence, but most of the details surrounding this latest issue are still a mystery.
The UFC’s VP of athlete health and performance, Jeff Novitzky, was on a recent edition Bruce Buffer’s podcast, and was asked about the former UFC champions current status following his recent drug test failure for steroids.
“That was a substance where a few years ago would only be detectable for a few days within the system. 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 simply Google search would show you that this substance’s detection window has now moved out from four to six months. 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 seemed to indicate that things were looking good for Jones, but now says the headlines were simply misleading.
“The headline and corresponding article took excerpts from an interview I did last week, where I was asked about the status of Jon Jones’ pending case,” Novitzky told MMAfighting. “I indicated that Jon’s camp, the UFC and USADA were all working hard and together to determine the source of the prohibited substance in Jon’s system. That is still the case.”
Novitzky also said that this is just the beginning of this process for Jon Jones, and that he was only giving some possible outcomes to the situation.
“I stated that this is often a lengthy process that can take up to several months to complete, but that possible sanctions based on the findings of a completed case ranged from a multi-year suspension, to a minimal, or no-fault sanction, if an unavoidable ingestion of the prohibited substance was determined.” he continued, “While all parties are hoping to find evidence of the unintentional or unavoidable use of the prohibited substance, at no time during the interview did I indicate that there were developments leading in that direction, as was the inference of the headline.”
