Johannesburg, South Africa – South African institute of Drug Free Sports (SAIDS) has been implementing testing on EFC athletes during competition and out of competition, with a minor number of athletes having tested positive for prohibited substances. However, as testament to the organisation’s goal of providing a safe and fair environment for athletes to compete in, all tested athletes from the EFC 50 and EFC 51 events results have returned negative.

The athletes that were tested are:
Martin van Staden
Tjaart Henning
Bill Thusi
Ruan Potts
Leon Mynhardt
Baldwin Mdlalose
Dave Mazany

“Fantastic to see another long list of clean test results, yet again,” stated EFC President Cairo Howarth. “The vast majority of EFC athletes continue to test negative for prohibited substances, under WADA’s stringent guidelines, which is a testament to high level of professionalism of all EFC athletes.”

This set of results follows on from reports received earlier in the month where all randomly selected EFC 48 and EFC 49 athletes tests were returned with negative results.

These results were released last week, just eight weeks ahead of Baldwin Mdlalose’s interim flyweight title fight against JP Buys at EFC 54 in Sun City, South Africa.

All testing is conducted independently by SAIDS. EFC, in conjunction with the sport association MMA SA PRO, follows the protocols put forth by SAIDS under the direction of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Up until 13 November 2015, all testing by SAIDS was done during competition. SAIDS now conducts out-of-competition testing in addition to in-competition testing being conducted by SAIDS at EFC events since 29 April 2015. Before then, EFC’s anti-doping programme was facilitated by Drug Detection International and funded by EFC.

For detailed breakdown of banned substances and testing protocol, visit: http://www.drugfreesport.org.za/