Canadian former champ Bute says positive test came from contaminated supplement

MONTREAL – Former boxing champion Lucian Bute said Friday that a supplement he took to help him sleep and recover from training contained the banned substance Ostarine and led to his positive doping test.

And the Montreal fighter, a dual Canadian and Romanian citizen, intends to take legal action against Pharmagenic, the San Diego lab that provided the supplement.

“I am not guilty at all,” Bute (32-3-1) said at promoter Yvon Michel’s gym. “I never knowingly took an illegal substance.”

Bute’s urine sample tested positive after fighting World Boxing Council super-middleweight champion Badou Jack to a majority draw on April 30 in Washington, D.C. The B sample result, released only this week, was also positive.

Michel said Los Angeles lawyer Howard Jacobs, a specialist in doping cases, was hired to look into it. Jacobs got KorvalLabs to test all the supplements Bute took while training for the bout and they found traces of Ostarine in a product called Dynamite PM Night Fuel, which is used to help athletes recover from training.

Michel said it could have been a simple mistake — that the supplement may have been made on a machine in which Ostarine was previously used and some got in the Dynamite supplement. The 50 bottles they received do not list Ostarine among the ingredients.

Bute said he will plead that case to the Washington Athletic Commission, which is to decide whether and how for long he may be suspended.

Ostarine is not a steroid, but can have the same effects such as increasing muscle mass, stamina and recovery. It is on the World Anti-Doping Agency list of banned substances.

The Dynamite bottle lists itself as a dietary supplement that “supports natural testosterone levels and muscle strength/ Promotes deep sleep and recovery/ Supports healthy libido function.”

Bute’s doubters will likely raise an eyebrow at his strength and conditioning coach Angel Heredia, once a leading provider of performance enhancing drugs to athletes who has said he has gone legal after co-operating with the investigation into the BALCO lab in California in the early 2000s.

Shunned by athletes in some sports, Heredia has been working mostly with boxers in recent years, including Jean Pascal of Laval, Que., and veteran Juan Manuel Marquez.

Michel said Heredia ordered the product specifically because it did not contain PEDs

“He has a contract with that lab,” said Michel. “He sent an exact formula and the lab made a mistake and there was some contamination with Osterine.

“I believe he acted in good faith. The lab made a mistake. I don’t believe Angel made any mistake.”

Michel said he did not know why it took three months for the B sample to be tested.

Bute said that regardless of any sanctions that may be imposed on him, he will continue to box and chase his dream of being world champion again.

The 36-year-old won the International Boxing Federation super-middleweight title in 2007 and defended it nine times before suffered a crushing defeat by Carl Froch in England in May, 2012. Including the Froch bout, he is 2-3-1 in his last six fights.

Bute looked to be on the comeback trail in a good showing against James DeGale in Quebec City on November, which earned him a title shot against Jack.

He has been training at brothers Howard and Otis Grant’s gym for weeks, even if he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to fight again.

“It’s good that Lucian has the finances to do this kind of thing,” said Howard Grant. “If he didn’t have the finances to hire a lawyer in the States who is an expert in this field and for him to send all the supplements to a private lab, forget about it. They would have been lynching the guy.

“We just want to get over this.”