FURY GOADS JOSHUA AS DOPING BAN IS BACKDATED

TYSON FURY has challenged world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua to a British superbout after receiving a backdated two-year doping ban. It enables him to resume his boxing career immediately, subject to receiving a licence. Fury (right) and his cousin Hughie accepted the ban for the steroid nandrolone, but delays in the process forced UK Anti-Doping to accept a ‘compromise’ allowing the 29-year-old to return to the ring in a bid to reclaim the world titles he surrendered. UKAD wanted the Furys to receive the statutory four-year ban with Tyson responding to the outcome by tweeting Joshua: ‘Where you at boy? I’m coming for you punk, (ain’t no one) blocking my path now!’ In a statement, he said he was out to put ‘the nightmare of the last two years’ behind him and suggested he and Hughie ‘can move forward knowing we’ll not be labelled drug cheats’. That is not the case. Both fighters accepted a sanction for an antidoping rule violation. And some will see yesterday’s outcome as a victory for a wealthy sportsman over a national anti-doping agency with limited financial resources. The key issue was the time that elapsed between the Furys providing positive samples in February 2015 and being charged by UKAD in June 2016. UKAD chief executive Nicole 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 — UKAD’s report stated the Furys claimed their elevated levels of nandrolone were caused by the ‘ingestion of offal of uncastrated wild boar or pig, or alternatively from contaminated supplements’ — there was no sanction for Tyson Fury’s refusal to give a sample in September 2016. Fury claimed to be suffering mental illness at the time and UKAD withdrew a charge that could have meant a fouryear ban alone. As the two-year ban was backdated from yesterday’s decision, Fury’s win over Wladimir Klitschko in November 2015 stands.