OAC Suspends Carina Damm Over False Urine Sample

The Ohio Athletic Commission has fined and suspended Strikeforce veteran Carina Damm for providing a false urine sample following her unanimous decision loss to Jessica Eye. The two met on June 1st, at ‘Fight on The Flats’, the infraction will mark the second time that Damm has been in hot water with an athletic commission. She was the first female fighter to be caught using steroids.

In 2008 Damm was collared for steroids by the CSAC, and unless she accidentally gave the OAC her apple juice carton-I’m assuming the worst has occurred once again. Here is the story according to OAC executive Bernie Profato, via MMARising:

“For the chain of command here, we only have one woman inspector, We really need to get women to go in there [to monitor the urine test], so we had someone who was not an employee of the state but was an unbiased person who had worked for another promotional company. Her statement to me for the chain of custody was that they went in there and she heard [Damm urinating] into the toilet, which didn’t make any sense, but Damm took the [filled] cup and put it on the counter.”

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“That person then got the cup, and our doctor was waiting right outside the door and she handed it to the doctor,” Profato added. “He sealed it, labelled it and took it over to me. I took it to the lab and released it to them. It was sent to the laboratory for testing. There has to be certain elements in [the sample] in order for it to be considered urine and those elements were not in it. So what we suspended her for is for failing to provide a urine or blood sample. Even the doctor, when he first handed the sample to me, he said, ‘I’m not a lab person, but two things here. One, this is kind of clear, and two, it’s cold!’”

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The fine is pretty minimal, $550 including lab costs, but a point to consider is that Damm has fought in Brazil since the test. Will the Brazilian athletic commission look to overturn her TKO win against Jessica Suelen, earlier this month? Profato continued:

“The suspension that we’ve given her initially is for six months,” Profato explains. “We sent her a certified letter and she can appeal. We tentatively have a hearing set up for her on August 13th at 10:00 A.M. She can call or contact us if she would like to have the hearing…. The state then has three options. They can reduce or dismiss the suspension, or they can extend it. We issue a fine and if [a fighter] flunks a drug test – and this is considered flunking – they have to pay for the lab test and they pay that directly to the lab. We don’t get a penny of the fine money here. It goes to a general fund that the politicians use.”

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Yet another case of pro MMA shenanigans, when will it end?