Det verkar som att Jon Jones kan återvända till UFC mycket tidigare än väntad, trots att han testat positivt vid två tillfällen under de senaste 14 månaderna.
Det var i augustimånad som det framkom att Jones hade spår av det otillåtna preparatet turinabol (en steroid) i sitt urinprov från en dopningskontroll som gjordes i samband Jones match mot Daniel Cormier på UFC 214 i slutet av juli. Detta resulterade i att Jones KO-vinst mot Cormier ändrades till no-conets samt att UFC beslutade att frånta Jones lätt-tungviktsbälte. Enligt USADA riskerade Jones att få mellan 2-4 års avstängning då detta var den andra gången han testat positivt under USADA:s regi. Detta kan dock komma att ändras enligt UFC:s Jeff Novitzky, vicechef över atleters hälsa och prestanda.
Novitzky säger i det senaste avsnittet av Bruce Buffers podcast ”It´s Time” att Jones kan komma lindrigt undan om hans team kan bevisa att Jones fått i ämnet via kontaminerad kosttillskott.
Jon tested positive from a sample collection done weigh in day before the UFC event in Anaheim that was in July. Basically he was just coming off a one year suspension. The previous suspension went to arbitration. So you had three different independent arbitrators looking at it. All of them ruled that he did not purposely use anything to enhance his performance. But, they also ruled that he operated with careless and wreckless disregard for what he took and ended up getting contaminated. So there was really no reduction in sanction and so he got a one year sanction from that previous one. Now unfortunately on this one, because of that previous sanction, he’s now looking at a second sanction which would basically double your penalty. The substance that he tested positive for was a metabolite of an anabolic steroid.
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 simple Google search would show you that this substance, it’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.
Jones testade positivt för östrogenblockerare, som är vanligt förekommande bland idrottare som gått på diverse steroid-kurer under en längre tid, inför hans match mot Cormier på UFC 200 förra året. Då blev han avstängs ”endast” i ett år då hans team yrkade på att Jones fått i sig ämnet i samband med ett lagligt kosttillskott.