Quest Labs, the firm retained by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) to execute the drug tests on fighters is reporting that Alistair Overeem’s Testosterone to epitestosterone ratio was a mind-boggling 14:1. The news comes by way of Mike Chiappetta at MMA Fighting.
The NSAC sets the acceptable upper-limit of T/E at 6:1 which is considerably higher than the 4:1 T/E ratio allowed by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC). According to Wikipedia, most healthy adult males have a T/E ratio of 1:1.
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Epitestosterone is an inactive analogue to testosterone that is produced in the testes simultaneously with testosterone, but critically is not impacted by exogenous administrations of testosterone. That is, when you’re juicing you just add T but not E.
For reference Floyd Landis had an 11:1 T/E ratio when he got in trouble at the Tour de France.
Mike Chiappetta has more on one athlete who tested even higher than Overeem:
Overeem’s number is slightly lower than that of Chael Sonnen when he was caught with an elevated level in 2010. Sonnen, who lost to Anderson Silva the day after the test was taken, produced a sample with a 16.9:1 ratio.
Overeem’s sample was split into “A” and “B” portions and Overeem has the option of requesting that his “B” sample be tested, either at Quest or at a different laboratory. So far Overeem and his camp have yet to respond to the test results.
UPDATE: Victor Conte tweets that Johnny Morton, former NFL wide receiver turned MMA fighter, tested at a level of 78:1 in 2007.
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