Georges St-Pierre says it’s “still easy” for fighters to beat drug tests, even in USADA era
In Georges St-Pierre’s eyes, performance-enhancing drug use is still a major problem in the UFC. Although the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has been working diligently to punish fighters who seek to gain an advantage with banned substances, St-Pierre feels there are still plenty of cheaters slipping through their nets.
“Even now, it’s still easy to [cheat]. Even now,” St-Pierre said recently during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience (transcribed by MMA Fighting).
“Let’s say I want to have an injection of a product that will last in my body for two days or one day. So I know that particular day I cannot be tested, because if I am, I’m screwed. So I put on my [USADA] whereabouts [app] that I’m traveling to freakin’ Antarctica or anywhere, somewhere that is believable, and then I come back two days after. That substance will stay in my body for a certain period of time, but the effect of it will last maybe a month. And now we’re talking about performance enhancing drugs — people, they misunderstand this.
“They go, ‘Well yeah, but it still doesn’t make a difference.’ Yes, it does make the different in an athlete,” St-Pierre continued. “And the reason, in the eighties and before, [PEDs gave] you more power, more stamina, more endurance. Now, man, with the technology, they have stuff that will change your reaction time, your confidence, your reset time. And this is a huge, huge application, man. If you play baseball or you’re fighting, you see the things coming, you have your reaction time, you’re sharper in the brain. What makes a guy athletic, it’s not his muscle. The reason why Usain Bolt ran faster — there’s many reasons why, but one of the main reasons is because his brain, his nervous system is faster.
“And if you make your nervous system better and more competent, you’re a better athlete. You’re a better fighter, you’re a better baseball player. You’re a better person, in a way. Of course that effect is limited, but there’s still the muscle memory thing that will last and it could last forever.”
St-Pierre continued:
“It’s very hard to catch people. So like I said, it’s easy to take something. There is a always a chance that you get caught, but if I would do it, that’s how I would do it. I would pretend I’m going to Antarctica, get an injection, then I come back and I’m good.”
What do you think of Georges St-Pierre’s comments on the UFC’s performance-enhancing drug problem?
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 6/4/2018.
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Georges St. Pierre
