Kelly Branton tested positive to a bunch of substances from a drug test earlier this year. He is pretty high level coming 2nd in the SHWs at IPF Worlds 2018. Claims tainted supps.
He has tested clean for years while competing in the IPF but wasn’t in the registered testing pool where they have hour by hour known locations for anytime random testing of an athlete. There’s only a few lifters in this pool which I guess is like the highest level of drug testing in Powerlifting.
I always thought IPF guys at like this world level were natty. What implications does this have for drug testing in Powerlifting?
I would assume that some people probably are totally clean, others just cant juice all-out like they would if they weren’t being tested. Top level IPF lifters test positive now and then, there’s a guy named Mohamed Bouafia who held the 120kg squat record and is now banned. Russian dwarf and multiple WR holder in both raw and equipped Sergey Fedosienko was previously suspended for a few years for drug use.
As for blaming tainted supplements, it’s possible but what supplements was he taking? If he’s clean then why doesn’t he try to fight it, ask for more tests, blood tests, etc.? He’s sponsored by Canadian Protein (which is where I get my protein from so I better watch it) and their products are supposed to be 3rd part tested and so on. If he was into some preworkout bullshit then I could definitely see something like that happening, although more likely it would be banned stimulants.
All the talk about how its so hard to beat drug tests only applies to people getting tested out of comp, there is no way to beat a test when they show up at your house in the middle of the night unless there is some official corruption going on and they switch samples.
The reality is, many people at the top juice. Its just a fact of life. Some get caught, others don’t.
I know many fans of powerlifting like to believe its nothing more than genetics, chicken breasts and dedication, but the reality is, no one is lifting 5/6/7/8 times their bodyweight without assistance. I don’t care who your coach is.
People need to get with the program.
Many Olympic level weightlifters are continuously getting popped. You would expect their testing to be much more rigorous. You can be dam sure, a lot more powerlifters at this level slip through the net.
What are your thoughts on athletes in the registered testing pool then. Even if it’s only a few dozen lifters total including Ray Williams and Brett Gibbs?
Honestly, with the amount of top Olympic weightlifters getting popped (their testing is probably a lot more rigorous than that of powerlifting), I wouldn’t be surprised if many at IPF worlds are using or have used. Granted, they all work dam hard, but its the nature of competing. Doing whatever it takes to win and sometimes that means breaking your own moral code to get there if need be.
If they are getting tested out of comp and passing then either they are clean or the guys doing the tests are switching the samples. And of course they could have used steroids in the past, which would give them a permanent advantage due to increased satellite cells and such, which increases the potential amount of muscle you can carry.
As for IPF lifters, I don’t want to call out names of people who haven’t been caught but I can give you a few examples where I think the guy was definitely on some shit. There was one guy who set a few world records and was training with some untested guys, the suspicion was already there, but now he competes untested and won a medal at the US open. Another guy who used to keep a training log online had a hip issue, then a back issue, then something with his arm or shoulder. He went from not being able to deadlift to not being able to lift at all. Next thing you know he deleted all his training logs, moved up a weight class, and set 2 or 3 world records at IPF worlds the same year. Then you have some other guys who can barely lift 90% of their training PRs at the meet and didn’t even cut weight - what else could explain that?
I’m in favor of having tested and untested divisions. The IPF claiming to be the “gold standard” of powerlifting (plus the fools buying into that) is what is leading people to compete there and take drugs. Still, with more money coming into the sport, the problem is that if you offer substantial cash prizes for tested meets then you are giving a big incentive to cheat. I think that rather than banning people for drug use they need some severe punishments, like 100 lashes or something along those lines.
Here’s something else: Julius Maddox claims to be natural, even though he competes untested. He has some old training videos on youtube with “drug free” in the title, he was strong as hell already but I figured he had gotten into the juice. He went out and got a drug test shortly after a big training PR to prove people that he’s clean, I guess he got tired of all the comments attributing his lifts to drugs. https://www.instagram.com/p/BuJwsRlg03R/
I find it hard to believe, but maybe possible. His training partner TD Davis set a WR at IPF bench worlds and says he’s now going to compete untested but he’s going to stay clean, he wants to compete against the best of the best. If the IPF wasn’t a total shit show then I would say he’s lying for sure, but maybe these guys are just a couple of genetic freaks. They both weigh around 400lbs too.
I think we can all agree that at the end of the day: there are clean and geared athletes competing in tested federations. Some will be using and some will have used in the past. Some will get caught, some will not. Drug testing (as we have seen in the past) is subject to rigorous standards, but sometimes to corruption. We hear some details over social media, but what really goes on with the samples, we will never know.
At the top: hard work, dedication, genetics and drugs all play a role. Whether tested or untested.
Something I’ve always wondered about IPF juicing is what’s the incentive? If they compete IPF and win, they get a cool medal for winning. If they compete untested and win the US open, they make 20k+. In olympic sports where there’s no untested option, there can be multi million dollar sponsorships on the line for good placing. It makes more sense to me that people would cheat there than in a sport that doesn’t pay drug tested winners
hahahahahahahaha and so are NFL players, NBA players and etc Drug Testing is a publicity stunt for Corporations and an IQ test for athletes.
There are a LOT of ways to beat the drug testing. I assume the most popular way is masking agents as every once in a while in a retroactive test people will be popped for stuff like Winstrol, Masteron and other drugs that have been around since the beginning of steroids and would be easily detectable and impossible to get in “tainted supps”.
There are still sponsorships, just not as profitable, plus success in the sport can bring coaching clients too. A lot of lifters are coaches or personal trainers these days. Mostly I think it’s just to satisfy their own ego and bragging rights, which is part of what gets people into competing in the first place.
The thing is that he’s sponsored by Canadian Protein, which claims all their stuff is 3rd party tested, blah, blah, blah. Is he accusing his own sponsor of giving him contaminated shit? If he was taking some other brand supplement then you would think he would say something and expose what they are doing. He’s not new to this shit and it’s common knowledge that a lot of supps contain banned substances, so I’m inclined to believe that he was cheating.
A few years ago I was reading about some Jamaican sprinters who tested positive for banned stimulants, they blamed a supplement and sure enough it turned out that the thing was tainted. They still got suspended, but at least it doesn’t look nearly as bad on them plus it will steer people away from certain products. Same thing when Jesse Norris took Craze and tested positive for some kind of amphetamines.
errrrr…how would you know what you can do to not get popped Hamstring Papi??? Also I didnt think micro dosing short esters was a viable option but I guess it makes sense. Out of system fast but I thought there would be metabolites etc.
Do you have the list of what he was popped for? All i found was Stanozolol and SARM S-22. There must be something I dont know about Winstrol for these guys to keep getting popped for it. And I didnt find a lot of info on what S-22 was really good for…yet.
Agreed, but it would be much harder to be successful as an enhanced athlete in an untested federation than being fake natty in a drug test one. Short-term greed/Fame > Morals/Principles. We all want the short-cut rather than putting in the hard work in…Not to go off-topic too far, but in a society of 5-minute-workout-programms and a pill for anything, I am not surprised. What’s the easier way? Cut booze, eat clean, go for a walk constantly for many years or just take a couple of pills every morning?
