SA Boxing Featherweight champion Matima Molefe has been banned for two years by the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport.

This was after the boxer tested positive for anabolic steroids after the featherweight title fight in May this year.

From Sport24.co.za:

The banned substances were found in Molefe’s urine sample, which was taken by the Institute’s doping control officials on 29 May 2011, after the featherweight title fight in East London.

Khalid Galant, CEO of the Institute of Drug-Free Sport, says that Matima tested positive for metabolites of the anabolic agent, Nandrolone.

Latest doping figures show that anabolic steroid doping amongst boxers is becoming a trend because of the misconception that steroids alone will enhance their performance and give them additional strength and power.

Galant says that drug abuse by professional boxers is becoming rife, with four positives out of 87 tests reported for the period April 2010 to March 2011.

“Boxing is a sport that combines high level co-ordination of gross motor skills with speed and strength. By focusing on illegal performance gains from steroids and ignoring the consequences that a doping ban can have, boxers are placing their championship status and earning potential at risk,.” Gallant said.

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Eric Allen Garonzik, a Lower Allen Township physical trainer, who was already serving a one-year sentence in a state prison after being convicted in a federal case of selling steroids.

The 41-year-old faces a sentence ranging from probation to nine months in county prison after being found guilty by a jury of simple assault and harassment.

From Cumberlink.com:

Garonzik is serving the sentence through the Dauphin County Work Release program. Since he is already in prison, Chief Deputy District Attorney Matthew Smith said he had no reason to have Garonzik’s bail on the simple assault case reinstated.

Garonzik took the stand in his own defense Tuesday morning to say that he never hit the woman he was accused of assaulting at a Lemoyne gym March 7.

The woman testified Monday that, after an earlier incident, Garonzik returned to the gym, asked to talk to her in a group fitness room, and then hit her twice in the face and backed her into a heavy bag.

Garonzik testified that he never even raised his voice while the two were in the workout room arguing about finances.

“Obviously we’re pleased with the verdict,” Smith said. “Both lawyers had to walk a tight rope as far as his past history, which was intertwined with (the victim). … I’m glad the jury was able to see past his attempt to lambast her.”

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Local professional athletes – who haven’t been charged — are being probed in a far-reaching Warren County drug investigation, according to authorities.

A clandestine anabolic steroids lab in Tennessee was busted during investigation that led to indictments of 32 people.

From Communitypress.cincinnati.com:

The suspects who have been indicted hail from six Ohio counties plus Tennessee. They include a Liberty Township gym owner, a champion Cincinnati bodybuilder, a manager at LA Fitness in West Chester Township and an exotic dancer from Middletown.

“It was a tight network” that required deep undercover work to infiltrate, Burke said, noting the suspects knew each other from gyms and bodybuilding.

“Virtually everybody we dealt with had no criminal record,” Burke said, which is atypical for drug investigations.

“There are at least two (professional athletes) we feel have an involvement in this operation,” said John Burke, commander of the Warren County Drug Task Force. “The investigation is ongoing and there may well be charges (against the athletes).”

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Georges Laraque said he fought not only against the National Hockey League’s toughest players, but also against the use of performance enhancing drugs, in his career spanning 13 years.

“Quite early in my career I started asking the (National Hockey League Players’ Association) to take action against all the performance enhancing drugs some players would use to become bigger in order to stop feeling the pain,” Laraque writes in The Story of the NHL’s Unlikeliest Tough Guy, a new autobiography, excerpts of which were reprinted in the Toronto Star.

From Montrealgazette.com:

“The job was hard and harsh enough not to have to compete against ‘killers’ swollen with steroids. The NHLPA listened to me, but refused to take any action on that front, for obvious political reasons. They wanted to keep drug testing as a card in their negotiations with the league.”

Laraque, who piled up 1,126 penalty minutes as one of the NHL’s most feared fighters, writes that the use of drugs created an uneven playing field for pugilists.

“The use of steroids by tough guys makes it unfair for the ones who decide to remain clean,” he writes.

“In my final years in the NHL, the league finally decided to set clear and precise rules against the use of any performance enhancing drugs,” he writes. “I was relieved, and found it funny how much weight some players had lost in just one year.”

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Doubts about the reliability of doping violations for clenbuterol in the past have been raised with an outbreak of positive tests for the anabolic steroid clenbuterol at this summer’s under-17 football World Cup in Mexico.

An astonishing 109 positive tests were recorded for the banned drug out of 208 urine samples taken during the tournament, according to a revelation by FIFA.

From Telegraph.co.uk:

The statistics are so extraordinary that both FIFA and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) have confirmed they will not be prosecuting any cases, blaming the failed tests on contaminated meat.

Mexican authorities admit the country has a major problem with farmers feeding clenbuterol to livestock to produce leaner, more valuable meat.

Based on what it describes as FIFA’s “compelling evidence”, Wada has also dropped its appeal against the decision of the Mexican football federation not to sanction five senior Mexican players who tested positive for clenbuterol at the Concacaf Gold Cup in June.

The news is expected to help Contador and Priestley who have been accused of using clenbuterol but have blamed contaminated meat. The ban of Priestley is due to end in February, though he remains banned from the Olympics for life under British Olympic Association rules.

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WADA recently disclosed that 109 of 208 soccer players tested positive for clenbuterol during the Under-17 FIFA World Cup held in Mexico in July.

Some Mexican farmers illegally use clenbuterol, which is a banned substance that can cause an increase in aerobic capacity, to bulk up cattle.

From Guadalajarareporter.com:

FIFA medical officer Jiri Dvorak called the results “highly surprising” but insisted that the teenage soccer players were not cheating. “It is not a problem of doping, but a problem of public health,” he told reporters, adding that none of the players were harmed or put in any danger.

Players from 19 of the 24 participating countries tested positive, at a shockingly high rate of 52.4 percent. FIFA and the WADA have declined to prosecute any cases because the weight of evidence points strongly to contamination.

Mexico’s winning team all tested clean, having switched to a fish and vegetables diet before the competition. This precaution was taken after five members of Mexico’s senior squad were suspended for testing positive for clenbuterol ahead of the Gold Cup in June.

WADA issued a statement last week urging all athletes in Mexico to “exercise extreme caution with regards to what they eat and where they eat.”

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Doping case against five Mexican soccer players has been dropped after FIFA determined the clenbuterol-positive test of five Mexican soccer players were caused by contaminated meat.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said it had dropped its appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

From USAToday.com:

FIFA gathered the evidence while working with the government of Mexico.

“The studies conducted by FIFA showed the correctness of the footballers’ claim that the positive samples were the result of meat they had ingested at a training camp ahead of the tournament,” the governing body of international soccer said.

Mexico won the Gold Cup in June despite the absence of goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, defenders Edgar Duenas and Francisco Rodriguez, and midfielders Antonio Naelson and Christian Bermudez. It beat the United States 4-2 in the final.

“Already several arrests have been made pursuant to these laws and large amounts of clenbuterol seized. Investigations are to continue,” WADA said.

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Individuals consuming oral steroids may be two folds likelier to have less vitamin D in their blood, according to scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

“When doctors write that prescription for steroids and they’re sending the patients for lab tests, they should also get the vitamin D level measured,” specified study lead author Amy Skversky, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of pediatrics at Einstein and Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital for Einstein.

From Healthjockey.com:

The severe vitamin D deficiency that is less than 10ng/ml, found in this study apparently leads to osteomalacia, muscle weakness, and rickets. Though debatable, 20 to 50ng/ml of vitamin D is usually regarded sufficient for bone health and wellness. The analysts believe that steroids boost proportions of a certain enzyme that makes the vitamin inactive.

The report namely ‘Association of Glucocorticoid Use and Low 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Levels: Results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): 2001–2006’ is published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

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Jeff Hardy checked into jail in his native North Carolina on Monday, October 3 to serve his 10-day sentence, as per TMZ.

The sentence stemmed from Hardy being sentenced on September 8 for a court case stemming all the way back to September of 2009.

From Examiner.com:

According to the report it was indicated that Hardy wanted to get his jail time over as soon as possible and put it behind him.

He was originally arrested on September 11, 2009, when police found 262 Vicodin prescription pills, 180 soma prescription pills, 555 milliliters of anabolic steroids, a residual amount of powder cocaine and drug paraphernalia after a search of his house. He was indicted on January 4, 2010.

Five felonies, a misdemeanor charge, and a conspiracy charge were faced by Hardy.

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