By Nathaniel Vinton, NY Daily News
There will be blood.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Thursday outlined parts of the Olympic-style drug-testing program it has put in place for the blockbuster May 1 fight between boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and former BALCO customer Shane Mosley.
USADA's regimen, which includes random blood sampling and other strict measures, outpaces any other anti-doping effort in professional boxing. Both fighters volunteered for the USADA program. Prospects for a previous bout between Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao foundered over disputes over drug-testing procedures.
In a conference call Thursday, representatives for both boxers were joined by USADA CEO Travis Tygart, who said Mosley and Mayweather will notify USADA of their whereabouts at all moments between now and the fight in Vegas. USADA may keep the fighters' samples in storage for testing in the distant future, when anti-doping science may have evolved to detect now-invisible substances and methods.
"These athletes are courageous in their position and their desire to be held to the most stringent anti-doping program to protect their right to compete clean," Tygart said. "At this point, both athletes have agreed to USADA's testing protocols, including both blood and urine testing, which is unannounced, which is anywhere, anytime."
Blood testing is customary in Olympic sports, but professional sports leagues in the U.S. have resisted implementing it. Such tests are the only way laboratories can detect the use of human growth hormone and several other doping methods thought to boost strength and stamina.
The new agreement also brings USADA into an awkward sort of partnership with Mosley, who testified before the BALCO grand jury that he injected himself with drugs supplied by BALCO founder Victor Conte, but escaped the kind of punishments other BALCO athletes faced. Mosley has claimed he didn't know the drugs he took were the endurance-boosting EPO and steroids, and has spent two years suing Conte for defamation for saying he told Mosley what the drugs were.
"We thought long and hard about it and its impact on us, whether we could be a part of this effort," Tygart said when asked if there was an investigation into Mosley's BALCO links. "At the end of the day we asked ourselves, what would clean athletes want us to do. From that perspective, clean athletes in this sport and in this event have asked us to be involved."
Tygart said that if USADA had had jurisdiction over boxing in 2003, it would have aggressively pursued evidence implicating Mosley, but that any hypothetical suspension would have been complete by this point.
"If he did cheat, and he does again, he will be caught and exposed in our program," Tygart said.
Source: nydailynews.com
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