RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Benn’s appetite for eggs is no yolk as mystery remains over failed drugs tests

From the sport that once gave us a defence based on uncastrated wild boar, we now have an addition to the genre of boxing and its escape routes from a positive drugs test — the ravenous consumption of eggs.

Despite the subject’s severity, the gags have been quick to come since the World Boxing Council cleared Conor Benn to return to their rankings. 

Conor Bennedict. What a yolk. Some of the offerings would indicate the verdict of an over-reaching sanctioning body might not be the unilateral name-cleanser that Benn wanted. And nor should it be, for the WBC ruling has thrown up more questions than answers.

It has been almost five months since we broke the news that Benn tested positive on September 1 for clomiphene, which preceded the 11th hour cancellation of his October fight with Chris Eubank Jnr and triggered accusations of a cover-up. A short while later, we informed you he had also failed an earlier test in July.

Via the statement from the WBC, we read that they found no conclusive evidence of intent to ingest clomiphene.

The WBC believe Conor Benn provided a ‘reasonable explanation’ for his failed drugs tests

What we did not read was any reference to strict liability, which is so often a key strand of the anti-doping framework. To go by Article 2 of the World Anti-Doping Agency code, ‘it is not necessary that intent, fault, negligence or knowing use on the athlete’s part be demonstrated in order to establish an anti-doping rule violation’.

We might one day explore that thought further with the WBC, who accordingly say Benn is clear to return to their welterweight rankings.

That, of course, being the limit of their jurisdiction in a matter which is being investigated on a far broader remit by UK Anti-Doping.

Until the latter is concluded, Benn will not be permitted by the British Boxing Board of Control to fight in Britain, so ‘cleared’ in this instance is very much a relative term. It would be generous to the point of naivety to say he is even halfway there.

What is so concerning about the WBC probe is the details they revealed of their handling of this issue.

Specifically, they say Benn’s lengthy defence centred on criticism of the testing process deployed by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association, and it was only in February of this year that Benn’s legal team submitted a detailed breakdown of his diet, comprising a large number of eggs. To accept that chronology, Benn filed his key evidence and had it accepted within a three-week period, remarkable when the anti-doping system of justice is notoriously glacial.

More puzzling is how reliable sources claimed to Sportsmail as far back as late January that Benn’s team had already been notified he was in the clear on the grounds of accidental ingestion, as we reported on January 31.

The WBC has also concluded Benn didn’t intentionally ingest the banned substance clomifene

Benn’s fight with Chris Eubank Jr was cancelled after the former failed two drugs tests

At some stage, we must assume Sulaiman will front up with some answers of greater detail, which might include why the WBC only weighed the merits of the first positive test in isolation and did not expand enquiries to cover Benn’s second positive.

They might also share the identity of their ‘expert nutritionist’ and likewise Benn might divulge where he sourced these eggs (30 to 34 a week, according to an interview he gave in October).

An interesting aspect there is that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs say clomiphene is not authorised for use in animals in the UK.

For now, the mystery remains and is hanging over a sport whose reputation for policing itself is more fragile than the average egg.