‘He has to live with cheating’: Kell Brook insists Amir Khan’s two-year ban from boxing after his positive drugs test will ‘tarnish his career terribly’ – and goads his rival that he ‘still took a hiding’ in their grudge match last year
- Amir Khan has been banned from sport for two years after a doping rule break
- Khan tested positive for ostarine after his fight with Kell Brook in February 2022
- Brook has insisted the doping ban will change how people view Khan’s career
Kell Brook insists Amir Khan’s legacy will be tarnished after his former rival was banned from sport for two years following a positive drugs test.
Khan tested positive for the banned substance ostarine, which can aid muscle growth, following a urine sample provided to UK Anti-Doping.
The sample had been taken following his sixth round loss to Brook in Manchester last year.
Khan accepted the findings but maintained his ingestion was not ‘intentional’, pleaded his innocence and insisted he ‘never had or never will cheat’.
The 36-year-old was given a two-year ban by UKAD on Tuesday, avoiding a four-year sanction after an independent tribunal ruled out ‘deliberate or reckless conduct’.
Kell Brook, right, has claimed Amir Khan’s two-year doping ban will tarnish his rival’s career
Khan was banned following a positive test for ostarine after his fight with Brook last year
Brook had earned a dominant win over Khan in Manchester by forcing a sixth round stoppage
Brook has insisted his former rival’s career has been tarnished by the ban, claiming he will ‘have to live with cheating’.
‘He is going to have to live with that, people are going to think how long has he been on these drugs,’ Brook told iFL TV.
‘Of course it is going to tarnish his career terribly. He has gone in there and taken an absolute pasting, a hammering.
‘Imagine if he weren’t on those drugs, he would probably have gone out in the first round. It shows you he was on all these drugs and still took a massive hiding.
‘He has got to live with that beating for the rest of his life. He has to live with cheating and everyone looking down in shame of him for those performance enhancing drugs he came into the ring with.’
Khan bizarrely claimed on Tuesday that the substance may have got into his system by shaking people’s hands.
He pointed to his poor performance against Brook as proof he did not cheat, while saying it was ‘quite strange and funny’ to have been banned having already retired from the sport.
‘I’ve never cheated,’ Khan said on Sky Sports News on Tuesday. ‘I’m a retired fighter and at the same time you can see by my performance, my performance against Kell Brook wasn’t the best.
‘I lost the fight and if I went in there and knocked Kell Brook in my life it’d be different.’
WHAT IS OSTARINE?
Ostarine is a Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator (SARM) – a type of therapeutic compound used for stimulating tissue growth like muscle and bone.
The substance is not approved for human consumption in any country and is prohibited at all times in sport by WADA.
There have been a rising number of positive tests involving ostarine and other SARMs in recent years, with athletes likely to obtain the substance from black market channels.
Ostarine can be found in other products – but only illegal ones, and a doctor will never prescribe a treatment or medication that contains it.
Some dietary supplements can contain SARMs such as ostarine and are sold as ‘legal steroids’ or ‘research only’ chemicals, according to USADA.
There is interest in ostarine to treat a number of muscle-wasting diseases, including cancer, osteoporosis and hypogonadism.
Brook claimed the dominant nature of his win over Khan means people could forget the potential danger of performance enhancing drugs in boxing and suggested his former rival ‘needs to pay’ for the offence.
‘It could have been a different story, I could be in a wheelchair right now,’ Brook said.
‘Him seriously destroying my life, kill me, make me a cripple forever.
‘Because I won people are going to forget about it, but at the end of the day he came into that ring cheating, trying to boost himself up.
‘He’s trying to get the advantage on me, instead of doing it in a 12 week camp, naturally.
‘He needs to pay bad.’
Brook has claimed that Khan ‘needs to pay’ despite his retirement from boxing last year
Khan, a former two-time world light-welterweight champion and Olympic silver medallist, admitted on Tuesday he would ‘hate to be remembered for this’ following the achievements in his career.
Khan announced his retirement from the sport in May last year, three months after his defeat to Brook.
The retirement came less than a month after Khan had been notified of his positive test, but he maintains the grudge match with Brook was always going to be the final fight of his career.
Khan ended his career with 34 wins from 40 fights.
Source: Read Full Article
