The two sides will no longer be partnered together following a dispute with Conor McGregor.
The UFC and U.S. Anti-Doping Agency are prepared to split at the end of their current contract together at the end of the year. The end of this partnership comes following an incident surrounding Conor McGregor and his return to the octagon, which is expected to come sooner than later.
McGregor suffered a broken leg in July 2021 during his fight with Dustin Poirier. As he prepares to make his return to fighting, McGregor re-entered the testing pool earlier this month, meaning he can be tested for performance enhancing drugs. The 35-year-old will likely be unable to fulfill the USADA’s six-month requirement in the pool with the contract being terminated at the end of the year.
USADA CEO Travis Tygart released a statement on Monday regarding the situation.
“Despite a positive and productive meeting about a contract renewal in May 2023, the UFC did an about-face and informed USADA on Monday, October 9, that it was going in a different direction.
The relationship between USADA and UFC became untenable given the statements made by UFC leaders and others questioning USADA’s principled stance that McGregor not be allowed to fight without being in the testing pool for at least six months.”
The UFC had been partnered with USADA since 2015 and have conducted more than 27,000 tests. McGregor originally targeted a return to UFC next year against Michael Chandler. He expects the fight to still happen.
The UFC was in search of a new partner handle sample collection for athletes and it seems they have landed on one.
UFC Names New Partner
On Thursday, UFC senior Vice President of athlete health and performance Jeff Novitzky shared that it will partner with Drug Free Sport International beginning in 2024. This company will now handle all drug testing for athletes on thirster and will provide certain “upgrades and improvements” over USADA.
Drug Free Sport Internation currently handles the collection for many sports leagues. Novitzky shared that Dr. Dan Eichner will also join the UFC’s anti-doping program.
“[Drug Free Sport International] currently handle collection duties for the following professional sports leagues — they have 325 long-term tenured sports clients including the NFL, the NCAA, Major League Baseball, NBA, WNBA, NASCAR, horse racing integrity and welfare unit, PGA, LPGA, FIFA, Crossfit. They actually help out with some drug-testing with various National Anti-Doping Authorities throughout the world and various sports federations. They virtually collect samples for everybody.
Dr. Dan Eichner runs the Sports Medicine Testing and Research Laboratory in Salt Lake City, UT, also known as SMRTL, one of two United States [World Anti-Doping Agency] accredited anti-doping laboratories, the highest accreditation standard in anti-doping in the world.”
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