Chechen Fighter Mairbek Taisumov Accepts Sanction for Violating UFC Anti-Doping Policy
Mairbek Taisumov is a Russian-Austrian mixed martial artist of Chechen descent.
Born in Grozny and trained in Vienna, he fights in the lightweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He has also trained at the Tiger Muay Thai & MMA Camp in Phuket, Thailand. In 2018, Taisumov acquired Moroccan citizenship, enabling him to carry passports from three different countries — Russia, Austria and Morocco. He still is unable to renew a visa to be used to enter and fight in the United States.
Chechnya’s dictator Ramzan Kadyrov is known to have gifted Taisumov with a brand-new Mercedes. Taisumov is friends with fellow Chechen fighters Zubaira Tukhugov and Magomed Bibulatov.
USADA PRESS RELEASE
April 11, 2019
USADA announced today that Mairbek Taisumov, of Vienna, Austria, has accepted a six-month sanction for a violation of the UFC Anti-Doping Policy after testing positive for a prohibited substance.
Taisumov, 30, tested positive for stanozolol metabolites 3′-hydroxystanozolol-O-glucuronide and 16β-hydroxystanozolol-O-glucuronide as the result of an in-competition urine sample he provided on September 15, 2018 at UFC Fight Night in Moscow, Russia. Stanozolol is a non-Specified Substance in the class of Anabolic Agents and prohibited at all times under the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, which has adopted the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.
Following notification of his positive test, Taisumov provided USADA with information about dietary supplement products he was using before and at the time of the relevant sample collection. USADA obtained open packages of the dietary supplements and collaborated with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) to source unopened packages from Russia. Although no prohibited substances were listed on the supplement labels, product analysis conducted on both the open and independently sourced, unopened packages of the products by the WADA-accredited laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah, indicated that they all contained stanozolol.
The presence of an undisclosed prohibited substance in a product is regarded as contamination. Accordingly, the products have since been added to the list of high-risk supplements maintained on USADA’s online dietary supplement safety education and awareness resource – Supplement 411 (www.Supplement411.org).
Under the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, as well as the World Anti-Doping Code, the determination that an athlete’s positive test was caused by a contaminated product may result in a reduced sanction. Where contamination is established, the sanction for a doping offense involving a non-Specified Substance ranges from a reprimand and no period of ineligibility, at a minimum, to a two-year period of ineligibility, at a maximum.
Here, USADA took into consideration the circumstances that resulted in Taisumov’s positive test and determined that a six-month period of ineligibility was an appropriate sanction under the rules for his violation.
Taisumov’s six-month period of ineligibility began on October 8, 2018, the date his provisional suspension was imposed. Under the rules, any decision concerning competition results is handled by the UFC.
Video above: Mairbek Taisumov with Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov