Amir Khan wants to make sure the next generation of fighters steer clear of his latest faux pas.
The former 140-pound titlist has come under fire recently after it was announced by United Kingdom Anti-Doping this week that he had tested positive for the banned performance-enhancing drug ostarine. The test was administered right after Khan’s stoppage loss to rival Kell Brook last year in Manchester.
UKAD shared the results in a release on Tuesday, slapping Khan with a two-year ban from fighting. Khan, who retired last year, has stated that he does not intend to fight again, at least anytime soon. UKAD argued that there were only trace amounts of ostarine, an anabolic agent, in Khan’s body, and concluded that Khan did not deliberately take the drug. However, because UKAD abides by a principle of strict liability, it still penalized Khan, reducing the usual four-year ban associated with illegal doping to two.
Khan has owned up to the results of the test but he has maintained that the ingestion of ostarine was by accident. He has suggested he might have absorbed it by doing something as mundane as shaking someone’s hand.
The 36 year old has not shied from the press. Earlier this week, he appeared on the British radio show talkSPORT to discuss his side of the story. Khan has repeatedly expressed his regret and has taken pains to convince the public that there was no malicious intent on his part.
In an attempt to improve his standing with the boxing world, Khan said he is now looking to become an ambassador of sorts for “clean boxing,” saying he would be interested in working in tandem with UKAD or a similar anti-doping agency to prevent younger fighters from making the same mistake as he did.
“I’ve always been a clean fighter, and I’m the one who always wants [more] testing,” Khan told talkSPORT. “It could be very damaging if I didn’t come here and talk about it. Because if I stayed quiet and moved away from everyone and didn’t say a word about it, people would say why is he saying nothing? But I wanted to come out and come clean.
“I think it would be good to work with UKAD or something, with anti-doping commissions to make sure that the sport of boxing should stay clean. Maybe somehow educate the younger fighters and the boxers out there even now fighting to say, look, be very careful. Contamination can happen. Make sure you check your vitamins, proteins, and everything. So, making sure you have a proper team around you, not taking drinks from just anyone towards a fight. Like I said it can happen to anyone.
“I take it on the head,” he added. “I’m not gonna blame anyone.”
Khan also refuted the notion that he announced his retirement only after he was informed by UKAD about his positive drug test. In the same interview, Khan insisted that he had not been told about the results until “six to nine” months after his fight with Brook, contradicting UKAD’s timeline.
“I think straight after that fight I kind of made that clear to everyone that I was going to call it a day from the sport because I didn’t feel like the same fighter,” Khan said. “I know exactly where you’re coming from. Yeah, people are going to start thinking of that. I didn’t think of it that way. But, no, I made my mind up straight after the fight. I remember doing that Sky interview and thinking that’s me done. I’m done for the sport. Because you know when you don’t have that fire left in your belly and you’re like, call it a day now.”
Khan pointed out that he was not in optimum shape against Brook—something he feels is self-evident from pictures taken of him from that night. The fact that he was knocked out by Brook, Khan feels, should disabuse any skeptics of the idea that he was doping to gain an advantage. Brook, on the other hand, has rejected that rationale and has called for his embattled rival to be subject to more punitive measures.
“I spent over a hundred grand just to make sure I find out how this happened, to prove that I was clean,” Khan said. “I spent a lot of money on this whole thing, because I wanted to prove to people I never cheated and I never would have. Sometimes you look at fighters and you can see their body shape and the way their body is.
“Coming back to that you can see my body in the last fight. It didn’t look nowhere near like I was on something. But you can see in some fighters you can see the muscles. They look strong, they have aggression, they’re aggressive in the fight as well, when they take shots, how they cope with taking them big shots, and come back with bigger shots. Almost recovered so quick. So you see all that and yeah you start thinking, ‘Are they on something?’”