Jeff Novitzky has been working at the UFC for nearly four years and it appears he’s taken on some of that fighting spirit based on his statements on Lance Armstrong.
The disgraced former Tour De France winner, who was investigated by Novitzky in a massive doping case while he was working for the Federal government, was vocal this week on social media with criticisms about the UFC and USADA’s handling of the Jon Jones doping case.
Jones is being allowed to fight on Saturday night despite a positive drug test came back showing trace elements of Turinabol, the same anabolic steroid found in his body last July after facing Daniel Cormier. The UFC and USADA stated that evidence shows that Jones didn’t re-ingest the drug but rather this was remnants from his previous incident with Turinabol found in his system in 2017.
Armstrong blasted Novitzky, the UFC and USADA over the entire situation and he heard back from the former Federal investigator on Friday.
“Lance Armstrong is probably one of the biggest frauds and cheats in professional sports” ~ Jeff Novitzky
“Lance Armstrong is probably one of the biggest frauds and cheats in professional sports,” Novitzky said when responding on Friday. “He’s out there making judgments — I think he’s the least credible guy to make those types of judgments. These same experts that are doing these studies and putting out these facts are the ones that basically exposed him as the biggest fraud in sports.
“So in my mind, that guy has no credibility to say whatever he wants to say. I don’t pay him any attention.”
Novizky has spoken several times about the Jones situation over the past week while attempting to explain why the former light heavyweight champion still had a banned substance in his system 17 months after it was originally detected.
For their part, USADA already cleared Jones of any wrong doing and stated they would not be sanctioning him for this latest positive drug test.
Novitzky added Jones won’t have carte blanche to test positive for Turinabol at any time in the future just because these latest tests were flagged but he was still allowed to fight.
Jones faces Alexander Gustafsson in the main event at UFC 232 on Saturday night in Los Angeles but still has to go before the Nevada State Athletic Commission in early 2019 to answer for these latest positive drug tests.
