Doping: One year suspension for Tony Yoka, his career in parentheses

"The Conquest" in parentheses: French boxer Tony Yoka was sentenced to a one-year suspension in France for anti-doping rule violations, a blow for the Olympic super-heavyweight champion, who will rely on to the Council of State. Except new rebound before the Council of State, it is undoubtedly a hard blow and a brave blow of the one for which one presents as "the artist" when it goes up in the ring and which fixed itself the goal to become the first tricolor world champion in the pros, in the category of heavyweight. In this very scripted plan, dubbed "The Conquest", with the support of his partner and broadcaster Cbad +, Tony Yoka must walk inexorably to the summits, to tutelage the greatest and put his name in the history of boxing, next of his models, Mohamed Ali or Lennox Lewis

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But it is on a basic principle that he dropped his guard: the localization rules for unannounced anti-doping tests that apply to all top athletes. "It's a drag on his career, all for administrative negligence," reacted to the Agence France-Presse director of sports group Cbad +, Thierry Cheleman, before reaffirming his support for the French. "We are there in the victories, we will be there too in these difficult times," he badured, insisting: "Tony Yoka's next fight, after its suspension, it will be broadcast on Cbad +. In early 2017, the boxer signed a four-year exclusivity contract with the encrypted channel, estimated at between eight and ten million euros.

A sentence without surprise

In concrete terms, the 26-year-old boxer is criticized to have failed three times, in less than a year – from July 2016 to July 2017 – the obligation to deliver an address on a slot of one hour per day … and to be there if an anti-doping controller presents himself. Last December, he had received a much lenient suspension, twelve months suspended, before the French Boxing Federation (FFB), but the French Agency for the Fight against Doping (AFLD), anxious to enforce the Code anti-doping world, has taken over the file. And the sentence she pronounced, applicable to France, is not surprising. The Code provides for two years of firm suspension for such an offense, or one year at best, "depending on the degree of the athlete's fault". French law, however, provides that the sentence may be further reduced because of "special circumstances."

His lawyer, Mr. Arnaud Pericard, regretted that the AFLD "is content to apply the scale of the World Anti-Doping Agency [AMA] ", disregarding" the particular circumstances of the case, the remorse expressed by Tony and his good faith ". According to him, "the AFLD holds that there was no desire for concealment on his part and that he never had a positive control", "but she ends up severely sanctioning what she recognizes. even being an administrative negligence ". "The fight is not over," said the lawyer, who relies on the Council of State to reverse the trend. He said he would urgently request the suspension of the sentence before the court, before claiming its cancellation pure and simple.

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Tony Yoka was heard on 20 June by the AFLD in Paris, three days before his fifth fight won in the pros, this time against the Englishman David Allen, by the referee's decision in the 10th round . After his first five victories, the French, coached in the United States by the famous coach Virgile Hunter, had promised "a big surprise at the end of the year". "Why not now get into the top 20? He had let go. Before warning that everything was based on the decision of AFLD.