Company handling ‘UFC 172: Jones vs Teixeira’ drug testing named in lawsuit for mishandling NFL samples

When UFC light heavyweight champion Jon “Bones” Jones requested random drug testing for tonight’s main event bout with Glover Teixeira it came as a bit of surprise, as random testing for an individual fight is very uncommon in the UFC.

According to a report from BloodyElbow, the company hired by the Maryland State Athletic Commission for the sample collection is Drug Free Sport. DFS has overseen testing for the NFL, NBA, NCAA and MLB.

News broke yesterday that DFS is named in a lawsuit that includes improper handling of drug test samples for the NFL. A New York Times story says that Andrea Wickerham, a former DFS executive, was fired after she expressed concerns over the 2013 handling of an NFL player’s drug test sample.

Some of the details are here:

In September or October, the senior director for N.F.L. testing of Drug Free Sport came to Wickerham with concerns about the collector and said that he had also spoken with another executive at the company. That executive had not addressed the concerns because “he was afraid the company would lose the N.F.L. as a client,” the lawsuit stated.

When Wickerham reported the issue to Uryasz, she claims she was then excluded from the investigation.

Drug Free Sport has come under fire in the past for an extremely low rate of positive tests. Such as in their NCAA testing program where they found positive tests on just 0.6% of players participating. Other concerns include things like “random testing” involving a day’s notice, which allows athletes time to take measures to pass testing.