USADA's Travis Tygart on Blood-Testing, Steroids, Boxing -- FanHouse

By Lem Satterfield, FanHouse

Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, was initially brought in to oversee the Olympic-style, random blood-testing that was at the center of the controversy leading to the demise of the negotiations -- and, presumably, the most lucrative boxing match in history -- between WBO welterweight (147 pounds) king and seven-division titlist, Manny Pacquiao, of the Philippines, and five-time champion, Floyd Mayweather, of Las Vegas, that was slated for March 13 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Now, however, it appears that Mayweather-Pacquiao is off, indefinitely, as Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 knockouts) appears to be all-but signed up to defend against Joshua Clottey of Accra, Ghana, at The Dallas Cowboys' Stadium on March 13, and Mayweather, reportedly targeted for a matchup with 140-pound, pure-boxer, Paulie Malignaggi, of New York, at the MGM Grand on the same night.

USADA's blood-testing effort was to be used for the first time ever in boxing, in general, and, by The Nevada Athletic Commission, in particular, since the sport has only used urinalysis to detect the use of steroids and other illegal drugs.

Tygart spoke to FanHouse recently concerning the differences between blood and urinalysis checking, the effects of anabolic steroids in combat sports, as well as what he believes is a need to impliment the procedure in boxing, among other things, in this ensuing Q&A.

FanHouse: Can you break down the differences between the effectiveness of drug-detection between urinalysis and blood-testing?

Travis Tygart: There's a host of significant and potent performance enhancing drugs that only blood will detect. Those include human growth hormone [HGH]; HBOC -- and that is synthetic hemoglobin; transfusions; certain forms of EPO, such as Mircera, which is essentially a designer EPO.

So those are a few of the specific drugs. There is also a different technique, which is known as parameter testing, which is done by the blood, or biological passport testing. Essentially, what it does is that it does not detect a specific drug like HGH.

But it looks at a host of parameters or biological markers that are natural to everyone's body. And over time -- if you look at those for an individual -- over time, you can see variability or fluctuations in those naturally occurring markers that we all have.

And if you see fluctuations to a certain degree, you can conclusively determine that those fluctuations were caused by nothing other than drug use, and certain categories of drug use. Not necessarily a specific drug, but categories of drug use.

I think that it's fair to say that there are several, very potent, performance enhancing drugs that only blood can detect, and there is an entirely different method of detecting broader categories of drug use through parameter testing that is done with the blood.

FH: What would it have taken to meld an inaugural blood-testing procedure into place for the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight in terms of logistics and cost, considering it never has been used by the Nevada State Athletic Commission?

Tygart: Cancel one day of mediation or one state commission meeting, and you've paid for it. It's not cost-prohibitive, particularly, given this kind of a fight, and the money that's being exchanged in the hands. It's not a money issue.

The issue is whether there enough familiarity with the benefits of an Olympic-style, USADA-run, testing program to want to do it. Is this slightly more intrusive? Sure.

Does it mean that you have to be available for blood and urinalysis testing, which might interrupt your ability to go out to dinner at the set time you wanted? Or watch the television that you might want to watch? Possibly.

But it's a slight inconvenience that 3,000-plus athletes, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- including holidays -- whole-heartedly agree to because they know that that slight inconvenience is worth the benefit of having all of the competitors tested by an effective program.

FH: Has there ever been a movement to create a national testing policy for boxing?

Tygart: There's been no real legs to be one in the states, but there certainly needs to be one. Hopefully this fight happens. But if it doesn't happen because one athlete is demanding the highest level of testing, then that's good for clean athletes, and clean athletes' voices ought to be heard.

Hopefully the states as well as the various organizations will finally listen to clean athletes and put in an effective program. That's what happened in the Olympic movement. The clean athletes finally said, 'Enough, we're tired of losing to cheaters, and we don't want to endanger our health to cheaters. So we want change.'

And we know -- and the world knows -- that having independent entities running gold standard practices is what we demand. And we're willing to live with a little inconvenience, and we might even be willing to live with a little less money and prizes, if we feel that it's being run fairly, uniformly and under the best practices.'

FH: Does this request by the Mayweather camp give you enough of a platform to push for random blood-testing inclusion in boxing for the future?

Tygart: There were numerous conversations that we had with both camps on the detail of what it would take for us to be involved in this. There was a cart-blanche, 'We want USADA to do it. We've gotten familiar with the program. We understand its pluses and minor inconveniences.'

'There are 3,000-plus athletes around the U.S. who are at the top of their game making more money or equal to the money that these guys do, who are subject to it, and it works for them, and they're the best that there is, and that's what we want.'

Particularly given a sport like boxing where not only does a cheater potentially win a prize, but a cheater can cause physical harm to someone else too, particularly if they're doped up. And that element of the discussion has gotten lost. And I think that that's unfortunate.

But I think that there's a real safety and health concern that we all want to be cognizant about. What I can say is that our program does not in any way inconvenience any athlete's -- including a boxer's -- ability to prepare or train for their fight.

So it's hard for me to understand -- and this is not a specific comment about any of the fighters involved here -- but it's hard for me to understand why any athlete wouldn't want the same program that all of our Olympic athletes have.

That is, if they understand these issues, and they're familiar with the programs, and they're educated on the mild inconvenience, and they appreciate the importance of a level playing field.

FH: How might the desired effects that a boxer may want to achieve manifest itself in a boxer during a fight?

Tygart: Take a real-life example. Look at Shane Mosley and his doping program that was reported by a number outlets when he was involved with BALCO. He used both a designer steroid as well as blood enhancing products like EPO. This is a good anecdote as to how these drugs translate very well for boxers.

What you want with that combination of steroids and blood enhancing product is that you want to be the best pound-for-pound, with that lean muscle mass, and to be the strongest competitor that you can be. Whether that means that you are at 180, 170, 210.

Various forms of steroids and human growth hormone are going to allow you to do that. If you want lean muscle mass and be light, you're going to want a lot of HGH. You're going to cut weight, but that weight is going to be lean muscle mass.

It's not going to be fat. It's going to be the strongest pound-for-pound that you can get inside of your frame at that weight.

FH: What about gaining weight?

Tygart: Similarly, that's the football players. If you want to go from a buck-70, to a buck-85, and still have lean muscle mass, and strength, that's what you're going to do is some cycles of steroids. You then couple that. You can go from 140, to 160, or 145 to 155, whatever the case may be.

And there are different versions, whether you're talking a Deca [Deca-Durabolin,] or a Winnie [Winstrol,] or a Stanozolol. I testified out there for the California Athletic Commission for an MMA fighter. They had three cases they were dealing with and I was just there to define general policies.

One of them was caught for a classic cocktail that you would want to have. It was one of the fighters. It was lean muscle mass. Everybody on the streets and in the gym knows that if you're in a weight category and in competition, in a combat sport -- whether its judo, or boxing, or karate, or tai kwan do -- that's a classic cocktail that you would use.

When you're cutting weight, it will give you the lean muscle mass that you need, to have as much strength, pound-for-pound, as you can at that weight classification -- whether it's lower for you or higer for you. And then you have those that will just build muscle.

The combination of those strength-type, pound-for-pound strength drugs, which would include the anabolic steroids and the human growth hormones, the insulin, and then you couple that with the blood-doping-type drugs -- the HBOC, the designer, or the regular EPOs -- that then is going to give you the endurance to go along with that strength in late rounds of events.

So, while you might not think of EPO being all that appealing to boxers, that's what allegedly Mosely was doing out of BALCO. And that makes perfectly good sense to us, because that's going to give you the kind of endurance you need in a late round in a hotly-contested and fought boxing match.

It's also going to greatly improve your ability to train. So there is also this sort of recovery training issue and what's it going to do for you on fight night. And it's significant.

FH: Is it deserved that Floyd Mayweather has taken a lot of criticism for asking for this?

Tygart: Any time that a clean athlete steps up and reaches out to USADA, we're going to support them. And I think that means trying to convince all of those who have decision-making abilities to have the best policies in place to give that clean athlete the fairest opportunity to compete on a clean playing field.

So if the state of Nevada, the state of California, the organizations of boxing, and whoever else is truly interested and will listen to their athletes, then we're going to be standing by those clean atletes and pushing for the best policies.

So, regardless of what happens with this particular fight, hopefully that is the legacy that will come from this. Hopefully, these organizations will finally wake up and put in the kind of policies that they need to protect their clean athletes.

Source: boxing.fanhouse.com