Professional boxing to return this Friday despite no drugs tests taking place during lockdown

Professional boxing will return this weekend despite not a single anti-doping test being carried out during the three-month lockdown period.

Frank Warren will stage the first professional fight night in Britain since the country went into lockdown in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, with British and commonwealth super bantamweight champion Brad Foster taking on unbeaten James Beech inside the BT Sport Studio behind closed doors.

But the bout - which will feature two other fights on the undercard - will go ahead despite no drugs tests being completed in the sport on these shores for three full months, due to UK Anti-Doping (Ukad) being forced to scale back its testing programme during lockdown.

A total of just 126 tests were attempted from the 1 April until 30 June, with the majority coming within football as the Premier League and Championship resumed in mid-June.

Of the 84 tests completed in football, 26 were carried out in competition, with the remaining 58 outside of it, while 12 tests were completed in rugby union. The remaining 30 were spread across athletics (11), cricket (6), swimming (5), taekwondo (4), canoeing (2) and cycling (1) along with a lone test in amateur boxing, with the emphasis put on football due to its early return to action. Two further tests were unsuccessful.

However, despite reducing the number of tests due to the lockdown restrictions in an effort to reduce the spread of coronavirus, Ukad were able to complete more than 1,000 online education courses, with three anti-doping hearings also taking place virtually.

And with sport on its way back, Ukad had stepped up its activity to ensure testing can be completed while meeting the safety protocols put in place across various sports.

“In line with the Government lockdown implemented in March 2020, we made the decision to significantly reduce testing operations to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. This resulted in fewer tests across all sports which is shown in our report released today,” said Nicole Sapstead, Ukad chief executive.

“As sport and competitive training returned, we announced changes to our testing process which put enhanced measures in place to reduce the risks of virus transmission between athletes and our testers.”

“During the lockdown we stepped up activities elsewhere to keep sport clean and support athletes and those around them. Since March 2020, over 1,000 people have completed Ukad’s online education courses; three anti-doping hearings have been held virtually; and we have processed and analysed intelligence from a variety of sources. During the entire lockdown period athletes have still been required to give us their whereabouts information.”

Although testing will increase throughout June, the fact that there will have been just 10 days since a three-month period of testing when boxing resumes this Friday is cause for concern.

During the last three months, heavyweight contender Jarrell Miller failed a second test for performance-enhancing drugs in the United States in the space of 12 months, and though the American had denied willingly taking any banned substance, it has raised fears that drug use may have been more common while testing was unable to be carried out.