The latest UFC fighter to run afoul of USADA is England’s Jim Wallhead — though in this case a tainted supplement is to blame.
English welterweight Jim Wallhead is the latest UFC athlete to fall victim to a tainted supplement. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced Tuesday that ‘Judo’ Jim Wallhead (29-11) had accepted a nine-month suspension stemming from an out-of-competition drug test administered back in October. That test turned up Ostarine in Wallhead’s system. Ostarine is classified as a “non-Specified Substance in the class of Anabolic Agents” under the UFC Anti-Doping Policy. It is banned at all times.
In a press release Tuesday, USADA stated that:
Following notification of his positive test, Wallhead provided USADA with information about a dietary supplement product he was using at the time of the relevant sample collection. Although no prohibited substances were listed on the supplement label, testing conducted on an independently sourced, unopened container of the product by the WADA-accredited laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah, indicated that it contained ostarine. The presence of an undisclosed prohibited substance in a product is regarded as contamination. Accordingly, the product has since been added to the High Risk List of supplements maintained on USADA’s online dietary supplement safety education and awareness resource
In cases of tainted supplements, USADA has historically given lighter punishments to athletes. In this particular case, the agency arrived at the nine-month sentence after judging that Wallhead had some degree of culpability because he failed to properly research the product. Though the supplement maker was not named, USADA stated that they also produced products that openly contained prohibited substances. As a result, “USADA determined that a nine-month period of ineligibility was an appropriate sanction under the rules for his violation.”
Wallhead, 33, is 0-2 in his UFC career to date. He has not fought since UFC 212 last June, where he was submitted by Luan Chagas. Though on the sidelines, his suspension runs retroactive to October 7, 2017, the date of his positive test.
