By Norm Frauenheim–
Alexander Povetkin and everybody in his camp were scheduled to undergo a polygraph this week, according to promoter Andrei Ryabinksy, who in media reports from Russia insists he is determined to get the truth and nothing but the truth about the positive drug test that scuttled the WBC title fight with Bermane Stiverne in Ekaterinburg last Saturday.
No kidding.
I’m not sure who will be conducting the test. But to whoever is at the controls: A question or 15, please, about why Povetkin was allowed to fight Frenchman Johann Duhaupas, who was there as if the promotion knew that Povetkin would test positive and Stiverne would just say nyet.
The whole sequence of events is beyond believable. If not so dangerous, it would be laughable. Somewhere in media reports from Russia, it was reported that “regulators” allowed Povetkin to fight despite the Russian heavyweight’s positive test for Ostarine, a banned supplement reported to be a steroid.
There’s nothing – nada – on who the regulators might have been. Vladimir Putin’s relatives? Russian hackers freelancing after exposing Hillary Clinton’s E-mails? AA couple of hamsters? All week long, I’ve been waiting for the polygraph results. Maybe we’ll have to wait on something from Wiki-Leaks.
Ryabinsky was quoted as saying that Ostarine can come from tainted meat. Yeah, maybe, although the recent positive test were related to tainted meat were for clenbuterol from cattle injected with the substance in Mexico.
Whatever the substance and its source, Povetkin should not have been allowed to fight, period. It was his second positive test for a banned performance-enhancer. He tested positive for meldonium, scuttling a fight with Doentay Wilder last May in Moscow. His ban was dropped because of a technicality and perhaps because of some influence from the case involving tennis star Maria Sharapova, whose two-year ban for the same drug was reduced to 15 months.
The substance and why he tested positive demands an investigation, which the World Boxing Council has promised. But the bigger issue is just why Povetkin went on to fight a stand-in. From here, there is no good answer. We don’t need a polygraph. We need a ban on title fights in Russia.
