Count recent
UFC heavyweight pickup Danylo
Voievodkin among those who popped before getting to fight.
According
the UFC and Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD) on Thursday,
Voievodkin tested positive for meldonium, a substance banned at all
times. This test failure took place following his win on Dana White’s Contender Series, where he
throttled Bailey
Schoenfelder in 73 seconds to claim a UFC contract. As a
result, Voievodkin has been handed a two-year suspension from
competition. Per
MMA Fighting, he has since been released by the
organization.
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Due to the nature of the substance and that it was taken after his
DWCS win, CSAD issued the full-length two-year ban. There is no
therapeutic use to make it exempt, and the CSAD did not indicate
that Voievodkin cooperated with the investigation to potentially
reduce his sentence. Meldonium is used to treat heart conditions,
but there is no indication that the Ukrainian suffers from any of
them to need its use. The drug has been used by athletes, generally
in the regions of Russia and former Soviet republics, for decades,
with its use
coming up in the Olympics as well as tennis—the substance
reached international spotlight in 2016 when top tennis player
Maria Sharapova was flagged for it.
The statement
from CSAD reads as follows:
”Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD) announced today that Danylo
Voievodkin, of Fastiv, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, has accepted a
24-month period of ineligibility for a violation of the UFC
Anti-Doping Policy (UFC ADP).
“Voievodkin tested positive for the presence of Meldonium, a
prohibited at all times substance in the class of Hormone and
Metabolic Modulators on the UFC Prohibited List, from an out of
competition sample collected from him on October 17, 2024, in
Vilnius, Lithuania. The evidence in this case reflected that
sometime after Voievodkin competed in his Dana White Contender
Series event in September of 2024, where he was awarded a UFC
contract, he used Meldonium after he was onboarded into the UFC’S
Anti-Doping Program’s (UFC ADP’s) Registered Testing Pool.
“CSAD has further determined that no mitigating factors exist in
this case to warrant a departure from the standard 24-month
sanction for the use of Meldonium, a non-specified substance under
the UFC ADP.
“Voievodkin’s 24-month suspension began on November 10, 2024, the
date on which he was placed under a provisional suspension.”