Back in 2015, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) began working with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). Perhaps best known as the official anti-doping agency for U.S. Olympic athletes, USADA has a long history of drug testing.
Since 2015, the agency has been the anti-doping watch dog of the world’s most famous mixed martial arts promotion. To put it in perspective, USADA’s testing program is seemingly so stringent that a professional athlete once failed a drug test simply because of their drinking water.
U.S. gymnastics Olympic hopeful Kristen Shaldybin once reportedly tested positive for “tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide and its marker, 3‐chloroaniline‐4,6‐disulfonamide.” In their statement on the matter, USADA revealed that the banned substance was likely ingested unknowingly through the athlete’s tap water.
“…USADA concluded on a balance of probabilities that the athlete unknowingly ingested the hydrochlorothiazide through tap water obtained from the municipal water supply. As the prohibited substance originated in the municipal water supply, Shaldybin will not face a period of ineligibility or loss of results obtained on or subsequent to June 7, 2016, the day her sample was collected.”
