Could USADA have gotten back Brock Lesnar’s positive drug test result before UFC 200?

Brock Lesnar beat Mark Hunt at UFC 200, landing 137 strikes in the process, according to Fight Metric. Five days later, the UFC was informed by its anti-doping partner USADA that Lesnar tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs — from a sample that came more than a week prior to UFC 200.

USADA did not get the test result back until July 14, according to the UFC. That timeframe between the sample collection and the result returning is standard in the industry.

However, USADA could have gotten the results back quicker had the agency requested it be expedited.

Lesnar’s sample was sent to the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory. Anthony Butch, the lab’s director, told MMA Fighting through a spokesperson that expedited results can return in anywhere from two days to a week. The cost for an expedited result starts at $35 per sample with the cost rising for weekend and holiday testing. The maximum is $450.

UCLA only charges the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) $30 to request an expedite, according to CSAC’s contract with the lab obtained by MMA Fighting in a public records request. The contract states that an expedited result can come back in three business days.

Lesnar’s sample was collected eight business days prior to UFC 200.

There was no guarantee had USADA requested Lesnar’s result be expedited that it would have come back before the fight, saving Hunt from those blows landed by a potentially enhanced fighter. The UCLA lab, the largest WADA-accredited lab in the United States, is currently slammed with pre-Olympic samples and the Fourth of July holiday was in between Lesnar’s sample collection and UFC 200.

An expediting request does not necessarily mean a result will come back any quicker than usual, but USADA in this case did not make that request. Lesnar tested positive for the anti-estrogen agent clomiphene in both the June 28 out-of-competition test and an in-competition test at UFC 200. Five earlier samples of Lesnar’s did return clean before the eventual positive one.

“I’m very pro USADA — very pro USADA,” CSAC executive officer Andy Foster said. “But I think asking for a fast turnaround on results of out-of-competition testing would make a difference. If the commission or promoter knows a fighter tested positive before the fight, they could have a chance to verify if a fighter is clean or not. I think by having that you’d take an already exceptional program and make it better.

“As a commission, we don’t want a fighter on performance-enhancing drugs to fight another not on performance-enhancing drugs. It’s a potential safety issue.”

Dr. Margaret Goodman, the president of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA), said her organization requests expedites on all results, but the time they take to come back depends on …

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