{"id":321586,"date":"2025-12-03T00:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/321586\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T00:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T00:19:08","slug":"janibek-alimkhanuly-fails-drugs-test-before-erislandy-lara-unification-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/321586\/","title":{"rendered":"Janibek Alimkhanuly fails drugs test before Erislandy Lara unification fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janibek Alimkhanuly has tested positive for a banned substance before his scheduled middleweight unification bout against Erislandy Lara on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The World Boxing Organisation (WBO) says it has been informed of the Kazakh fighter’s failed test by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (Vada) and an internal investigation is under way.<\/p>\n

Alimkhanuly, who holds the IBF and WBO titles, has been pulled from the bout against WBA champion Lara and replaced by Venezuela’s Johan Gonzalez, according to American media.<\/p>\n

It has been reported the banned substance is meldonium, a performance-enhancing drug which can boost an athlete’s endurance. It has been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) since 2016.<\/p>\n

Alimkhanuly’s ‘A’ sample returned an adverse analytical finding, and the fighter has requested that a second ‘B’ sample be tested.<\/p>\n

Writing on X, Alimkhanuly said he was “surprised” at Vada’s findings.<\/p>\n

“I have always supported clean sport, you know this well. I was surprised when I read the news,” said Alimkhanuly., external<\/a><\/p>\n

“Vada took the first test and said everything was clean. I have not made any changes to my vitamins. I don’t know what happened with the second test, so I requested a retest.”<\/p>\n

Alimkhanuly last fought on 5 April when he retained his WBO and IBF belts against Anauel Ngamissengue via a fifth-round stoppage. <\/p>\n

The 32-year-old has won all 17 of his professional bouts since making his debut in 2016.<\/p>\n

Cuban-American Lara last fought 14 months ago when he stopped Danny Garcia in the ninth round to retain his WBA title.<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old, who is a former champion at light middleweight, has won 31 of 37 fights since debuting in 2008.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez, 34, has won 36 of his 40 bouts and last competed in March when he defeated Jarrett Hurd by split decision. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Janibek Alimkhanuly has tested positive for a banned substance before his scheduled middleweight unification bout against Erislandy Lara…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-321586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}