{"id":621158,"date":"2026-04-21T10:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621158\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:21:14","slug":"lawrence-okolie-returns-adverse-drug-test-ahead-of-tony-yoka-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621158\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawrence Okolie returns &#8216;adverse&#8217; drug test ahead of Tony Yoka clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Lawrence Okolie was set to fight on Saturday.\u00a0Bradley Collyer\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>British heavyweight Lawrence Okolie has failed a Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) drugs test, five days out from his scheduled bout against Tony Yoka, Queensberry Promotions have confirmed.<\/p>\n<p>Okolie (23-1, 17 KOs) was scheduled to fight Frenchman Yoka (15-3, 12 KOs) in Paris on Saturday but the fight is now in serious doubt.<\/p>\n<p>Frank Warren&#8217;s Queensberry confirmed the news on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Last night [Monday], the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) informed Queensberry that Lawrence Okolie returned an adverse finding following an anti-doping test conducted ahead of the show in Paris this Saturday,&#8221;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Queensberry\/status\/2046499211072491669\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"> a statement said.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A further update regarding the event will be made in due course.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Former cruiserweight world champion Okolie was looking for a statement victory in Paris against 2016 Olympic gold medallist Yoka.<\/p>\n<p>Following Queensberry&#8217;s statement, the Brit said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DXYzdzHjMZG\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">post on Instagram:<\/a> &#8220;Before anyone starts imagining the worst, following my bicep injury last year, I sustained an elbow injury on the same arm during this camp. I had a treatment on it and now we are here. I truly hope sense prevails.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I will of course be fully cooperating with all relevant authorities and I&#8217;m confident any investigation will clear my name.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t be making any further comment at this time. Thank you for all your support and see you soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Both Okolie and Yoka were coming off victories in Nigeria in December. The Brit is the WBC&#8217;s No. 1 ranked heavyweight contender behind champion Oleksandr Usyk and interim title holder Agit Kabayel.<\/p>\n<p>A win against Yoka could have put him in line for a mandatory title fight later in the year.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lawrence Okolie was set to fight on Saturday.\u00a0Bradley Collyer\/PA Images via Getty Images British heavyweight Lawrence Okolie has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-621158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}