The trouble with Ostarine: Jimmy Wallhead’s
16th March 2018
Features

• The Tennis Integrity Unit has issued a statement to The Wall Street Journal confirming that four mixed-double players, investigated over alleged match-fixing at this year’s Australian Open, have been cleared. During the tournament the four players featured in a doubles match in which bookmakers stopped taking money on due to high levels of irregular betting activity.
• The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) today said it will be taking no further action against Sergio Henao, after the Athlete Passport Management Unit (APMU) requested further information from the Team Sky rider about his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) values on 20 April. As reported by The Sports Integrity Initiative, Team Sky withdrew the Colombian from racing after the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) contacted him about his ABP readings between August 2011 and June 2015. It is understood that the APMU were satisfied with Henao’s contention that the readings were a normal response to his returning to Colombia in winter, where he lives and trains at altitude.
• The international basketball federation (FIBA) and Euroleague Commercial Assets (ECA) have been “cooperating with the European Union” regarding the ongoing argument over European club competitions, said FIBA Europe President Turgay Demirel in a statement. In an earlier statement, FIBA said that national federations had ‘reacted positively’ to its 20 March decision to sanction any national federation that allows its clubs to participate in the ECA-run Euroleague with a ban from international competition.
• Genius Sports has signed a deal with the Belarusian basketball federation (BBF) that will allow it to distribute all its data to the global betting market. In return, Genius Sports will provide its Sports Integrity Monitor services to the BBF.
• The World Boxing Council (WBC) announced that Lucian Bute has tested positive for ostarine, an anabolic agent prohibited by section S.1 of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Prohibited List. The super middleweight boxer, who tested positive at his championship fight with Badou Jack on 30 April, told the Canadian Press that he did not intend to take a prohibited substance, but admitted taking supplements and switching his training team a year ago.
• New South Wales police expect to issue further warnings to National Rugby League (NRL) players this week, as concerns grow over possible links to organised crime, reports the Daily Telegraph. Last week, Parramatta Eels player Corey Norman was charged with drugs offences after capsules of MDMA (ecstasy) were seized from him. The charges came after police warned Norman, team-mate Junior Paulo and James Segeyaro of Penrith Panthers for consorting with criminals. The Eels have since released Paulo, and Segeyaro has reportedly been dropped from the Panthers’ first team.
• The satirical current affairs magazine The Private Eye has revealed that a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report into the International Boxing Association (AIBA) found that it ‘fell considerably short’ in meeting the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Code and ‘in protecting the sport and its clean athletes from the risk of doping’. AIBA is the world governing body for amateur boxing, which competes at the Olympics. According to the report, AIBA had ‘conducted virtually no out-of-competition tests in the past three years and none at all last year’. According to Boxing News, it is unlikely that boxing will be barred from the Olympics as WADA has said that it ‘does not have the jurisdiction or the power to take such decisions’.
• German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has published a series of leaked recordings in which newly-elected FIFA President Gianni Infantino appears to encourage a plot to remove Audit and Compliance Committee Chairman Domenico Scala. According to the recordings, Infantino proposed to a meeting of FIFA’s Congress earlier this month that the FIFA Council be given the power to remove heads of its Independent Committees without putting it to a vote of the 211 Member Associations. FIFA has reportedly labeled the allegations as ‘ludicrous’ and ‘unfounded’.
• The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) told ABC that budget cuts of 20% would lead to a drop in staff levels from 78 in 2014, to 50 in 2017.
• UEFA have decided not to extend Liverpool defender Mamadoi Sakho’s 30-day suspension. In April, Sakho returned an adverse analytical finding (AAF) and was provisionally suspended by both UEFA and FIFA for 30 days. However the BBC reports that UEFA’s Disciplinary Committee will be making a decision on his case in the next few days and in the meantime will not extend his ban, which ended on Sunday.
• Dulwich Hamlet FC, a semi-professional club who play in the regional Isthmian League, have reportedly signed Ibrahim Kargbo, a footballer banned from playing football in The Netherlands over match-fixing allegations. Kargbo, a former Sierra Leone captain, was given a life ban earlier this year after an investigation by the Integrity Unit of the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) found that he had colluded in fixing both domestic and charity matches involving Sierra Leone’s national team.
• Brentford football player Alan Judge has been issued with a reprimand by the Football Association (FA) after he was found to have breached The FA’s Anti-Doping Regulations. Judge was charged after the presence of Salbutamol (which can enter the body through the use of asthma inhalers), was found in his is body above the WADA permitted threshold.
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