Novitzky: UFC sets drug testing bar
Life’s work on display in program, noted ex-federal agent says
Jeff Novitzky, who led a federal investigation into performance-enhancing drugs that rocked sports more than a decade ago and ensnared the likes of Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, takes issue with his public image.
“I absolutely think I was perceived as this cowboy or hunter that was looking to put heads of big athletes on my wall,” Novitzky told USA TODAY Sports. “That was never the case.
“Our goal on all of these cases was looking at the distributors of these drugs.”
Now Novitzky is building a new image — and his own antidoping program.
In April, after several high-profile fighters were caught using performance-enhancing drugs or recreational drugs, Ultimate Fighting Championship announced it had hired Novitzky from the federal government to establish an anti-doping protocol and oversee athletes’ health. Then UFC kept him out of the public eye, deepening the secrecy that has long cloaked Novitzky. No more cloak.
Last month, during an interview with USA TODAY Sports, Novitzky said the anti-doping program he had implemented at UFC was the best in professional sports. Hands down.
That point is open to debate in the anti-doping community, but not with Novitzky.
“There’s really not a close second after what we’ve put together here,” he said. “A goal of this program is for other professional sports to look at what we’re doing and to set the bar up high and to bring them up with us.
“Unprecedented.” CHEATERS TOUGH TO STOP Novitzky says athletes who cheat, in general, have adapted since he
led the IRS’ raid in 2003 on the Bay Area Laboratory Co- Operative, the company owned by Victor Conte that provided legal and illegal supplements to athletes.
The new catchword among the cheaters is “microdosing,” the use of faster-acting drugs that are less detectable because they clear the body’s system faster.
“The goal is always to completely eliminate doping in sports, and you do that by using every known tool in the book and putting in your policy and program like we do,” he said. “This is a program that I think all professional sports can take a look at and use as an example, to look and see what they’re doing and the possible shortcomings they have in their program and measure up theirs to ours.”
According to the UFC, its program includes year-round unannounced testing, tougher sanctions such as two- to four-year suspensions and the use of a biological passport, which tracks biomarkers of doping over the long term. BELIEVING IN USADA The linchpin of Novitzky’s program is a partnership with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which serves as the UFC’s independent administrator.
But USADA has come under fire recently. Last month, the anti-doping agency disputed allegations in a story by SB Nation that it failed to act properly by allowing Floyd Mayweather Jr. a therapeutic-use exemption when the boxer required an IV of saline and vitamins the night before he faced Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas in May.
Novitzky said his faith was unwavering in the organization that played a key role in uncovering Lance Armstrong ’s history of doping.
“Unlike every other professional sport, there’s no fox guarding the henhouse,” Novitzky said, touting the value of USADA authority. “They have all decisionmaking power under this program.
“They decide who’s going to be tested, when they’re going to be tested. They do results management. We have no say in that. We put the rules together but then hand them off to USADA. That’s huge.”
Don Catlin is a leading antidoping scientist and worked with Novitzky during the BALCO investigation, but he is skeptical of USADA’s involvement with UFC while acknowledging he believes in Novitzky’s motives.
“I’ve heard strong statements about how great (the UFC’s program) is, but I am suspicious until I actually see it in action. Who’s in charge? If USADA is in charge, I’m even more suspicious, because they’re known to do a lot of weird things,” Catlin told USA TODAY Sports.
“I know Jeff is a good guy. I’ve worked with him for years. I’m worried about USADA. They’ve had a lot of bad affairs lately and making up the rules as they go. That’s not a good idea.”
And then there is Conte, who says he shares Catlin’s concerns about Novitzky’s claims but raises issues beyond cheating through PEDs.
“PEDs are especially dangerous in combat sport, because the objective is bodily harm,” Conte said. “If we see a significant number of positive drug tests and appropriate consequences being handed out to fighters, then their testing program may serve as an important deterrent.
“I believe that health and safe- ty issues in combat sport have been on the back burner for far too long.”
That gets to the other part of Novitzky’s job.
“Definitely the anti-doping side is an important side initially getting off the ground,” said Novitzky, whose business cards identify him as the UFC’s vice president of athlete health and performance. “But it doesn’t stop there.
“It’s going to be looking out for the total short- and long-term health of our athletes in terms of getting them in front of the best training techniques and methods and entities. Rehabilitation. We’re working with the medical community and brain studies in the Cleveland Clinic.” HOW IT CAME TO PASS Novitzky was the buttoned-down federal agent with 22 years of ser- vice — and only three more years left until retirement — when he went to be the anti-doping cop at a place run by colorful Dana White.
“It’s an interesting story, man, the twists and turns of life,” Novitzky said.
In February, he came to Las Vegas to watch his two oldest daughters play volleyball and visited a former colleague from the IRS.
The friend now works at Station Casinos, co-founded by Lorenzo Fertitta, who also is a co-owner of the UFC.
The friend then introduced Novitzky to his Station Casinos boss, former sheriff Bill Young. After chatting with Novitzky, who then was working for the FDA, the former sheriff helped set up a meeting among Fertitta, White and Novitzky.
“A couple of weeks later Bill Young calls and says, ‘Hey, are you sitting down? These guys want you to come work for them.’ I was floored totally,” Novitzky said. But Novitzky had reservations. “I’m not going to try to hide the fact that there were, in my head, thoughts of, ‘Hey, is this the right thing to do? Is this just them taking advantage of my credibility in the anti-doping world and I get over here and they say, “Hey, don’t really do anything. We’re just hiring your reputation,” ’ ” Novitzky said.
“But the more I evaluated it, the more I spoke with them about what their ideas were, the more I thought about it.
“It was, ‘God, what an opportunity in anti-doping. Not walking into a scenario where something ’s already there and just try trying to fix it. Just creating a thing from scratch and using all this institutional knowledge I’ve gained in the last 14 or 15 years.’ ”