A 54-year-old chiropractor and physical therapist has been suspended from athletic competition after being caught taking advantage of performance-enhancing drugs and anabolic steroids at an amateur cyclist competition in the US.
Bruce Mazur, a sometime amateur road racing cyclist in his spare time, was found to have been using performance-enhancing drugs according to a positive PED test that had been administered on August 1 of 2018 by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
In most circumstances, amateur athletes aren’t ever exposed to the US ADA testing protocols that professional athletes are required to adhere to in any competition. Amateurs (obviously) usually aren’t competing at the same level as professional athletes, aren’t up for the same kind of awards or monetary purses, and don’t usually have the same chance at winning these events that professional athletes do.
However, Mazur found himself in a unique situation that required him to submit to USADA performance-enhancing drug testing protocols because of his long-term membership in the USA Cycling organization.
The USA Cycling organization, pioneers behind the Race Clean Program, has been looking for ways to clean up the reputation of the cycling community throughout the United States and around the rest of the world.
Obviously, the sport of cycling has been rocked by some of the biggest performance-enhancing drug scandals in the last 25 years – stretching back quite a ways before the Lance Armstrong scandal rocked American cycling to its core.
In an effort to try and show sponsors, athletes, and fans around the world that cycling had taken a new term and that they were serious about cleaning up the sport – even if it meant tearing it down to the studs and rebuilding it from there – USA Cycling has partnered with the USADA and asks that ALL of their members (professional or amateur) submit to PED testing randomly throughout the year.
According to the USADA, Mazur popped positive for a specific anabolic steroid but they are keeping information regarding this steroid private and confidential. After all, Mr. Mazur is a private citizen and not a professional athlete, and while he will not be able to continue to compete at any USADA or USA Cycling sanctioned event the organization feels that he shouldn’t have his privacy violated at the same time.
Outside sources, however, contend that the odds are good that Mazur was found taking advantage of a new form of synthetic testosterone as the USADA was experimenting with performance-enhancing drug testing protocols designed specifically to find this substance during the same block of time.
A new carbon isotope ratio test had been pioneered for use by the USADA, and it’s used to uncover specific types of anabolic steroids that would have gone unnoticed in the past. This is the kind of test used to determine whether or not testosterone has been produced naturally by the human body or testosterone that had been introduced into the body exogenously via any external substance.
After placing second at the 2018 505 Cycling Classic Road Race in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mazur was given a “surprise” performance-enhancing drug test by members of the USADA. He had been sponsored at the event by Therapy Solutions (an outpatient physical therapy center based out of Santa Fe, a physical therapy center that Mazur is a co-owner of).
Compliant with the USADA standards for suspension, Mazur has been stripped of all metals and awards he had received during competition on or after his positive test for steroids. On top of that, Mazur has received a four-year suspension that will allow him to compete again when he is 58 years old.
Mazur doesn’t look like he is going to be appealing this suspension anytime soon.
Source: https://www.usada.org/bruce-mazur-receives-doping-sanction/