By Scott Gilfoid: WBA heavyweight champion Lucas Browne says he arrived in Russia clean as far as drug testing goes for his March 5 fight against former WBA champion Ruslan Chagaev in Grozny. Browne, 36, says he was tested by VADA for blood and urine when he first arrived in Russia.
After his 10th round knockout win over the 37-year-old Chagaev on 3/5, Browne was given a urine test. Browne says his first test when he arrived in Russia was a negative one. He says he has evidence that his test was negative. However, somehow between the first test and the second test, something happened to cause Browne to test positive.
“I now hold clear and unequivocal evidence that this test was a negative test and shows clearly that I arrived in Chechnya a clean athlete. Hatton Promotions have made this information available to the media today,” Browne said in a statement via Fight News.
In a statement from Hatton Promotions, they confirm that the initial blood and urine test that Browne took when he arrived in Russia was indeed negative:
“We confirm that drug test was NEGATIVE. We have in our possession evidence from VADA that this is the case and this is available for inspection,” said Hatton Promotions via Fightnews. “Mr Browne arrived in Chechnya a clean athlete… We would remind everyone hat the 6th round, Lucas’ most difficult of the fight having been on the floor, was extended by some 36 seconds by the timekeeper in Chechnya to give their champion extra time to try to end the fight. Clearly that was intentional and Lucas overcame it. We will do all that we can to overcome this newest hurdle to ensure justice prevails and Lucas has our complete support in this regard.”
Wow, this sounds really bad. If Browne was clean when he first arrived in Russia, then it would make no sense at all for him to be testing positive for a weight loss drug like clenbuterol days later. It makes no sense at all. It would be crazy for a heavyweight to use a weight loss drop because they don’t need to worry about making weight. I mean, why in the world would a heavyweight ever use a drug like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if a fighter from a lower weight class chose to use the drug in order to melt pounds off, but not a heavyweight and especially not days before a fight. It makes zero sense.
It’ll be interesting to see if Browne will be allowed to keep his WBA title or not. From what Hatton Promotions is saying in their statement, something happened from the time that Browne arrived in Russia to the time that he took his second drug test after the fight.
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