Sanchez Speaks Up For Golovkin Regarding VADA Testing

PED testing, it gets a bump in notoriety, and attention, then recedes from view.

The whole complicated deal barged onto our radars right before the last Floyd Mayweather fight, as Thomas Hauser took a microscope to Floyd and USADA.

Testing issues have percolated again, this time surrounding the plan to monitor Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux ahead of their Oct. 17 title clash at Madison Square Garden in NY, and on HBO PPV.

VADA will test the fighters, which is a good thing. I actually stirred the pot a bit, when I Tweeted two days ago, “As Hauser put forth and Mr. Mannix reiterates, late term limited testing seems subpar.” This in response to a Chris Mannix (SI) Tweet, which said, “Respect @GGGBoxing for asking for advanced drug testing. But starting it less than a month before a fight seriously limits its effectiveness.”

I heard from Golovkins’ trainer, Abel Sanchez, who stuck up for his kid, to his credit.

“I have a comment on some criticism from you and others regarding the VADA testing,” Sanchez told me. “First, understand that we, teams Golovkin and Lemieux, were under no obligation to test. There is a substantial cost for tests, but Triple G requested that and understood the costs. I want to point out, fighters get criticized for not taking it, and now we are being criticized for only giving it one month. If a fighter is dirty, it will only take one sample to prove it, they take blood randomly. Why is it there can’t be at least an ‘attaboy!’ for agreeing to take it?”

Point taken, sir.

As I explained to Abel, my Tweet, not fleshed out, as many times they are not, in that micro-blogging arena, was in the context and wake of the Hauser story.

In that piece, it was pointed many potential loopholes which a person who wants to cheat could find a way. Starting testing late would be one way, potentially, to get around regulations. But Abel is right, in that it isn’t right to even by association cast aspersions. Hauser laid out material he argues shows irregularities in the USADA methods and Mayweathers’ testing history; that issue is separate from Golovkin and Lemieux, by and large.

Now, do I think it makes the most sense of all to do year-round testing, as the VADA people propose? Surely…That clarifies the issue, lets all (clean) parties breathe easier, and goes a longer way in “solving” this hornet’s nestery.

Also, when Sanchez tells me his kid is clean, I take him at his word.

“My career and accomplishments of all my fighters are much more important than one fight, or one fighter,” he stated. “How we remembered by our peers is our legacy.”

Noted…points taken and appreciated.

Follow @Woodsy1069

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