Fury calls out Joshua after drugs let-off
TYSON FURY challenged Anthony Joshua to a British super- bout last night after receiving a backdated two- year doping ban that enables him to resume his boxing career immediately, subject to receiving a licence.
Fury and his cousin Hughie accepted the ban for the steroid nandrolone, but delays in the process forced Uk Anti-Doping to accept a ‘compromise’ that allows the 29-year- old to return to the ring in a bid to reclaim the world titles he surrendered.
Two of those heavyweight belts are now held by Joshua, whom Fury hopes to lure into a Wembley showdown in the next 18 months.
UkAD had wanted the Furys to receive the statutory four-year ban for the offence but Fury responded to the outcome by tweeting Joshua: ‘Where you at boy? I’m coming for you punk!’
For that fight to happen, Fury must first shed the considerable weight he has gained over the past two inactive years.
Joshua, meanwhile, is heading for a world-title unification clash with WBO champion Joseph Parker in the spring and may demand Fury proves himself in one or two preparatory bouts before agreeing to fight him. In a statement issued last night Fury said he was determined to put ‘the nightmare of the last two years’ behind him and also dared suggest that he and Hughie ‘can move forward knowing that we’ll not be labelled drug cheats’.
That is not the case. Both fighters accepted a sanction for an antidoping rule violation and last month it emerged that senior UkAD figures feared that a legal dispute with the Furys — who may have sued for loss of earnings — could have resulted in the agency becoming insolvent unless they received a government bailout.
Yesterday, UkAD chief executive Nicole Sapstead insisted they had received the backing of the Government to pursue the case to its conclusion. The key issue was the time that elapsed between the Furys providing the positive samples in February 2015 and being charged by UkAD in June 2016. Sapstead insisted they could not charge the boxers until they had the ‘science’ to support the findings when nandrolone is a naturally occurring substance in the body.
While that charge was upheld — as UkAD’s report stated the Furys claimed their elevated levels of nandrolone were caused by eating uncastrated wild boar — there was no sanction for Tyson Fury’s refusal to give a sample in September 2016.
UkAD accepted Fury’s claim that he refused as a result of the agency having issued proceedings against him three months earlier. Fury, who has confessed to t a k i n g cocaine, claimed to be suffering from mental illness at the time and UkAD withdrew a charge that in isolation could have meant a four-year ban. As the two-year ban was backdated from yesterday’s decision, Fury’s win over Wladimir klitschko in November 2015 stands. Sapstead admitted it was not the perfect result for UkAD. ‘It isn’t as if you’re going to go, “This is a brilliant outcome”. A compromise is a compromise,’ she said. Tyson Fury said as part of a joint statement with UkAD: ‘Hughie and I have maintained our innocence from day one. ‘ Next year I will be back doing what I do best and ready to reclaim the world titles which are rightfully mine.’