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Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury tests positive for cocaine; likely to be stripped of titles

AP_16118540979487
Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury tested positive for cocaine. (AP)

Things have gone from bad to worse for heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. One week after pulling out of his October 29 rematch with Wladimir Klitschko for unspecified reasons, the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) has notified the Englishman that he tested positive for cocaine.

Fury ended Klitshcko’s decade-long reign as heavyweight champion last November when he defeated the Ukrainian by unanimous decision. However, a rematch with Klitschko was cancelled twice. The first time a Fury ankle injury forced him out of a scheduled July fight. The second time was on September 23 when Fury was curiously declared “medically unfit” and the fight was postponed yet again.

To complicate his controversial removal from the fight, it was revealed that Fury submitted a random urine test on September 22 in Lancaster, England. The test was flagged for benzoylecgonine, the primary metabolite of cocaine. Fury will have the right to have his “B” sample tested.

This compounds Fury’s situation immensely as the timing of the drug test and his pulling out of the rematch will likely find him stripped of his world titles. Considering that no medical records were submitted at the time he pulled out of the October rematch, the sanctioning bodies are requesting medical reports that confirm his status. Fury’s doctor issued a letter stating that Fury had mental health issues that would render him “unavailable for the foreseeable future.”