Tyson Fury failed to turn up for his UK Anti-Doping hearing on Monday, the agency has confirmed.
Athletes accused of anti-doping rule violations do not have to attend hearings in person but the 29-year-old former world heavyweight champion was expected at UKAD’s London headquarters on Monday morning.
Members of the tribunal were sent home after 3 pm but UKAD would not say if the hearing officially started or not.
The boxer’s camp has not responded to Press Association Sport’s attempts to ask why he did not show up or if he intends to attend on Tuesday.
The Manchester-born fighter, however, has made several posts on his social media sites in the last 24 hours, including video from Sunday’s Manchester derby at Old Trafford and a verse from the Bible: “no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed…”
Fury and his cousin and fellow heavyweight Hughie, 23, tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone in February 2015.
The pair, however, were not charged by UKAD until June 2016, by which time Tyson Fury had beaten Wladimir Klitschko. A rematch with the Ukrainian was scheduled for July 2016 but Fury postponed the fight, citing a sprained ankle, on the same day the UKAD charge was announced.
Both Hughie and Tyson Fury have strongly denied the nandrolone charge, claiming the positive was a result of eating wild boar that had not been castrated – a defence similar to the one used by cycling star Alberto Contador when he tested positive for a steroid at the 2010 Tour de France.
The Fury case has been complicated by several other factors, though, as Tyson Fury failed a test for cocaine in September 2016 and later admitted using the recreational drug to deal with depression related to his injury and UKAD problems.
COMMENTS