On April 21, USADA announced that former heavyweight champion Frank Mir had received a two-year suspension for an anti-doping violation. Mir recently released a statement denying knowingly ingesting any banned substance, a position he has maintained since the positive test.
Mir, 38, tested positive for a long-term metabolite of dehydrochloromethyltestosterone (DHCMT), following an in-competition test conducted on March 20, 2016, at UFC Fight Night 85 in Brisbane, Australia. DHCMT is a non-Specified Substance in the class of Anabolic Agents and prohibited at all times under the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, which has adopted the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List. The finding of a long-term DHCMT metabolite in Mir’s sample, which was identified through a new detection method by the WADA-accredited laboratory in Tokyo, Japan, led to Mir being provisionally suspended from competition on April 8, 2016.
With the new method for testing, it was discovered that an out-of-competition sample Mir provided on February 5, 2016, which had previously been reported to USADA as negative for the presence of prohibited substances, was also positive for the same long-term DHCMT metabolite found in Mir’s in-competition sample.
“I have consistently denied knowingly taking anything that would violate USADA’s guidelines,” Mir stated via Facebook. “I was originally told that my post fight sample from March 20, 2016, had been flagged for a trace metabolite, following my clean test the previous month on February 5. For this past year, I have been focused on analyzing anything I could within that six week window that could’ve possibly been the cause… testing supplements and reviewing dietary habits. It is frustrating to now be told that USADA has changed their mind about the February 5 test, claiming that the sample they once cleared is now clouded with the same trace metabolite. Even more frustrating is that I’ve been told that the long term metabolite could date back two years, prior to the implementation of USADA standards and possibly to a time when I had a legal exemption for testosterone replacement therapy.
“As hard as it was to try to retrospectively analyze everything I had consumed within a fairly recent six week period of my life, I would have no idea where to start going back years into my past. What I can do is reiterate my denial and ask you to note that my position on this issue has remained consistent. By contrast, USADA now has two versions of their narrative concerning me.”
Mir’s suspension will end in April 2018.
