Penick's Take
PENICK: Breaking down Chael Sonnen's FS1 explanation of drug test failure, "out of competition" claims
Jun 10, 2014 - 10:15:55 PM PENICK: Breaking down Chael Sonnen's FS1 explanation of drug test failure, "out of competition" claims

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Chael Sonnen attempted to clear up his drug test failure this evening on an appearance on Fox Sports 1's program "America's Pregame." Unfortunately for him, a series of misdirections and outright falsehoods essentially only muddied the situation for him, at best. There was a lot said, and a lot to comment on, so let's take it piece by piece from his appearance.

=====

Here's how Sonnen began:

"These are the medications that you have to go on to lead a healthy life. And if they're asking me to choose between my health and my sport, that's not a choice I can make, I've gotta choose health... I had no opportunity to go before the commission, I had not spoken] to them. But I'm saying I had done other interviews anywhere it had come up. The only opportunity you're ever given to disclose is in competition when the state of Nevada comes to you, you do have a form you can fill out. This was done out of competition, this was done by a separate lab known as USADA, it's the finest lab in the world. But these were also strangers, this was not the Nevada Commission that came to me, and there was no attempt to have a disclosure form.

But even if I had disclosed or hadn't, you have to understand, this is out of competition. An athlete does not have to remain off of medication 365 days a year. Not in the NCAA, not in the IOC, and not even with the Nevada State Athletic Commission. This is unprecedented. As an athlete, if I break my arm and a doctor gives me Vicodin - Vicodin is extremely illegal on fight night, but it's also an extremely appropriate medicine to cure somebody's pain if he has a broken arm, and the message that they're sending here is wrong."

-To start with here, this is not an issue of using a medication out of competition that is allowable so long as it's not on fight night. It's about using a substance that is on the banned list both in and out of competition. Clomid (clomiphene), hCG, and Anastrozole are not substances which have been approved for athletes to use at any point, regardless of whether it's fight night or not. This is not popping an aspirin, taking an ibuprofen, or even using a painkiller for an injury, as those drugs all have out of competition exemptions. Clomid, hCG, and Anastrozole do not. Perhaps Sonnen was simply ignorant to it being on the banned list in the first place?

=====

"Yes [I knew it was a banned substance]. Yes, it is on the banned list. But you have to understand, that's for competition. Now, if this was game day, I'm not making any of these statements I'm making to you right now. On game day, you have to come in right. But out of competition, an athlete cannot take an anabolic, he cannot take a performance enhancer and he cannot take a steroid. The former executive director has many quotes out there that I will download and I will bring into the commission when I appeal this thing, stating that there is a difference between game day and the other 364 days out of the year.

Ibuprofen is banned... caffeine is banned... marijuana is now a legal substance in many different states... had any one of those showed up, I would not be having this conversations, cause they know what those are. They'd look at it and go 'oh, he's on caffeine' 'oh, he's on ibuprofen.' It would go away. They don't know what these are. And therefore who gets punished? I get punished. They shouldn't even be asking me. They should go to their doctor and just say 'do you agree with this treatment.'

There has always been a distinction. It doesn't matter if you're talking NCAA Division I, the IOC, or this commission, there's always been a distinction between game day and out of competition. And when you're out of competition, if you're not on an anabolic, if you're not on an illegal substance, if you're not on a steroid or a performance enhancer of any kind, that is acceptable. I took, under the care of a physician, a perfectly legal medication that is not a performance-enhancer. In fact, one of them is an estrogen blocker that blocks a hormone; now that's a female hormone, I don't want that for vanity reasons, it makes me bloat, it makes my skin break out, but it's still a blocker."

-Alright then, once again, the out of competition testing argument. Except here, he admits he knew it was a banned substance. He says it's just for competition, but that's not the case. Those drugs are banned out of competition as well as in competition, and in sports where random drug testing is done - where they can be tested at any point - a positive test for these drugs would breed worse punishment than Sonnen's likely to receive. He continued:

=====

"I had to take these drugs because they banned testosterone. So to be in compliance, you have to stop with testosterone. Now there's a transition phase, to come off of testosterone healthily. I have a legitimate medical need for testosterone. I was not an abuser. I was a user of testosterone. So when you come off of this and you have a medical need, you must transition. What you'll take is Clomiphene and hCG. I took Clomiphene and I took hCG. That is what happened. This also serves as a fertility drug. That was an accident. I was having fertility issues. That's not part of my life that I wanted to share with anybody else, that can be very embarrassing. And we had success.

[When I took the test], I believed it would come back for hCG. I had taken my own test for Clomiphene and I believed it was out of my system. Now the test that they used through USADA is the best test, the best lab in the world, it's an extremely sensitive test in comparison to what I'm able to use here in Portland, Oregon. So I knew hCG would come in. Clomephine was a surprise. But again, those are Coke and Pepsi... they do the same thing.

I took these substances, but they're not illegal, they're not performance enhancing. Why the commission will allow certain medications outside of competition and not others, we're going to have to talk to them about, but these are not anabolics that have any outcome on sport.

Throughout my career, I have had a number of labels. But in nine months, I will have the label of parent and father and if I have to go through this and choose between having the label of being a father and a parent or having the label of being an athlete, I am going to choose every single time parent and father. I know what I have done and if I had to do it again, I would do it exactly the same way 20 more times."

-Let's address another issue with these drugs. There are doctors who will prescribe them for those coming off testosterone treatments or anabolics, which Sonnen definitely is, but they're what's known as "off-label" drugs in this scenario. In the case of Clomid, it hasn't been FDA approved for men, and isn't the only option for restarting testosterone. Now, if Sonnen wanted to do all of this for his health and for his family, then that's absolutely something he could do, but that doesn't give him the right to compete if they're banned substances in whatever competition he'd like to be involved with. As far as what drugs are allowed and which aren't, that is something which can be debated, but the simple fact is that at the time he was taking them, these drugs were banned in and out of competition. And he was getting off of another drug he claimed was a medication but wasn't allowed in TRT. Plain and simple. These drugs weren't allowed in the first place. Now here's where Sonnen took another turn for the ridiculous.

=====

"I don't know. I think we're going to have to take a good look at that. I am not defending being outside of the rules. If this is what the rules are - and this is very unclear. Mike, you cover sports, you tell me, do you know the rules? If I challenge you right now to go find them out, how are you going to do it? Is there a website you can go to? Is there an 800 number you can go to? Is there somebody's office door you can knock on? No. This is how we find out the rules. They never tell us the rules until they tell us we're in violation of them. If I'm going to continue to be in violation of the rules, then I will have to make another plan. I do not offer you today that I should be able to be around the rules. That's not the case at all. But the rules are very hard to follow when it's a continual moving target, and it's not equal for everybody."

-Saying "they never tell us the rules until they tell us we're in violation of them" may be the most asinine statement Sonnen's ever made, and his line of reasoning about the availability of the rules is as ridiculous. The WADA list is readily available. The Nevada Commission is readily available. And he's already admitted he knew these substances were banned. Feigning ignorance and trying to claim that he thought these drugs were the same as ibuprofen or caffeine in that sense is ridiculous. He then again tried to argue that he was never given a chance to discuss it with the Nevada Athletic Commission:

=====

"I have never had an opportunity to go to an official... When the commission comes to you, they will come to you with a form, where you get to disclose anything that's in your system and why you took it. Basically, as long as you write it down and again it's not an anabolic, it's not illegal, it's not a performance enhancing drug, you're going to get a pass. What they don't want it fighters trying to slip something through. This was a test done by USADA. It never came with that form. It's the only test I've taken in the history of my competition in Nevada that didn't come with that disclosure form. So I did the test and the very first thing I did was call my manager and say 'they didn't give me a chance to disclose.'

I still haven't heard from Nevada. I've called them repeatedly today, I haven't gotten anything back. I went all the way to the Attorney General's office, they haven't called me back. But they were happy to call the media.

We want to learn the rules, we want to operate within the boundaries. We want to stay in bounds here. I'm just a little bit frustrated that I'm having trouble understanding where those lines are at. And I don't have anybody that I can ask, either. This isn't an open door policy with the commission. I'm out of competition.

I took a legal substance that I need to operate within the rules of which they changed, and to be a parent. I'm not sorry I did that. I don't like that the fight is being suspended, and in a bigger picture that I don't know when or if I'll be able to compete again. I don't like that. I don't challenge that; if those are the rules, then those are the rules. But this is news to all of us."

-One of the talking points coming out of this entire situation is whether or not the Nevada Athletic Commission should have put something in place to deal with the transition. There's certainly something to that, and perhaps they would have worked with Sonnen on making that transition if he had consulted them in the first place. Had he started the process with "This is what my doctors are telling me I will need to do after stopping TRT abruptly," they might have been able to put something into place. He didn't. He knowingly took substances that he knew were banned. Not only that, he says that he and his camp did their own tests and thought the Clomid was out of his system. He was knowingly attempting to move forward with that out of his system having not had any conversations with the Nevada Athletic Commission about what he was taking. Then he signed on for a fight when there was a possibility this was in his system, effectively rendering his "out of competition" arguments moot as well. After that, he ended his "explanation" with a comparison that just doesn't hold weight once again:

=====

"There should be no reason that these are any more banned than the example I gave you of the kid breaking his arm and having to take a Vicodin. There's plenty of fighters, baseball, basketball, football players that have ADD, and they take Adderall or some type of a Ritalin. They can't show up with that on the field on game day, but the other 364 days a year, they have the right to take that medication. That's the same thing that I did. For the commission to come in and act as though for 365 days a year I don't get to see my doctor? That's beyond ridiculous."

-The commission isn't telling him not to see his doctors. The commission isn't keeping him from taking medication. They're flagging him for taking something that is not an approved medication to take at any point in competition. For any substance on the banned list to be used, a therapeutic use exemption must be sought. He had one for TRT, he should have attempted to get one ahead of time for the supposedly medically necessary Clomid, hCG, and Anastrozole treatments.

While the Nevada Athletic Commission has some culpability in these proceedings for abruptly halting their TRT allowance, it's clear that in this case Sonnen went ahead with this follow up treatment without any attempt at clearing it with the commission. These were not substances the commission allowed, and he didn't get an exemption to use them anyway. That's where he sits, and the more he tries to "explain" his situation, the bigger hole he's dug for himself.