Nonito Donaire is Totally Drug Free & Proud of It

Former BALCO founder, Victor Conte, has informed FanHouse that WBA interim super flyweight (115 pounds) titlist Nonito Donaire's recent comprehensive blood tests contained "No abnormalities," an indication that he is an athlete who is free of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) heading into Saturday night's bout against Ukrainian WBA bantamweight (118 pounds) champion Voldymyr Sydorenko at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.

"Although drug testing in boxing will never be completely foolproof, the health and safety of boxers has always been of the utmost importance. They all deserve to have adequate medical testing available to them," said Conte, who made the results public at Donaire's request. "Nonito is in excellent health, and his most recent blood test results contain no abnormalities, which is to be expected from a healthy and drug free athlete."

A man who once made a four-year, career out of "helping athletes to circumvent" Olympic style drug testing policies such as those executed by United States Anti-Doping Agency "until BALCO was raided" in 2003, and he was imprisoned for a short time, Conte has since turned over a new leaf.

Conte, is now "a part of the anti-doping movement, trying to help those at WADA [The World Anti-Doping Agency,] and, USADA [The United States Anti-Doping Agency] to develop more effective anti-doping policies and procedures," he told FanHouse in a July interview.

Conte now runs SNAC -- an acronym for Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning -- which has been in existence since 1988 and supplies "perfectly legal sports nutrition products and supplements," he said. Among Conte's clients is Donaire (24-1, 16 KOs), for whom he oversees a supplementation program and special, high altitude training.

"[As part of his training,] Nonito Donaire routinely does comprehensive blood testing to monitor his health and training. There are specific markers that can be used to possibly indicate over-training syndrome," said Conte. "These markers can be used to help an athlete achieve an optimal balance between the training load and recovery intervals."

The blood testing is also designed to reveal abnormalities that signal the use of PEDs, said Conte.

"The use of PEDs can cause abnormalities in some of the parameters contained in a comprehensive metabolic blood profile. Elevated liver enzymes, reduced HDL cholesterol levels and high hematocrit percentages are examples," said Conte.

"Anti-doping officials refer to routine blood chemistry screening as 'biological passport' testing," said Conte. "It is simply another tool that is used in the attempt to reduce the use of drugs in sport."

Conte said that Donaire began working with him "about two-to-three months" prior to his last fight, which was July's eighth-round knockout of rising prospect Hernan Marquez (28-2, 21 KOs).

"You know what? I told Victor that I didn't know who Victor Conte was in the beginning," said Donaire, who is nicknamed, "The Filipino Flash," and has another tough rival in Sydorenko (22-2-2, seven KOs) in their Top Rank Promotions bout. "But he was such a nice guy when I met him, and we became friends."

In a recent interview with FanHouse, Donaire addressed any potential suspicion that might result from his relationship with Conte.

"If anything, if they feel that they need to check on me about any drugs or anything, then I'm willing to be tested. I'm willing to do anything that proves that I'm not doing anything wrong, and I've told Victor that," said Doniare, who has a 23-fight winning streak and knockouts in eight of his past 10 fights.

"Victor is the nicest guy, and if I do anything wrong, then, hey, it's going to show up in the testing. But, you know I believe in Victor, and I believe in the products and the nutrition that he has given to me. And, especially the hypoxicator machine training that he has me on and I love it," said Donaire.

"Victor's a good friend of mine, and like I said, if anybody dares to or wants to test me or disapproves of my training, then I will be tested," said Donaire. "I've always been a clean guy. I've always been that, and if they disapprove it, give me a test and I'll take it."

One of several boxers whom Conte has worked with includes WBA super middleweight (168 pounds) titlist and former U.S. Olympic gold medalist, Andre Ward (23-0, 13 KOs), who benefited from Conte's expertise during victories over Edison Miranda by 12-round unanimous decision in May of 2009, and, during a November, 2009, 11th-round, technical decision over Mikkel Kessler that earned Ward his present crown.

Ward no longer works with Conte, but the former Olympian's close relationship with Donaire prompted the 115-pound champion to pursue the services of Conte.

But the relationship between Conte and Donaire came to fruition only after a thorough investigation by Donaire's wife and business manager, Rachel Donaire.

"I really just needed to feel who he was at first. One of the things that Nonito was concerned about was the reputation that Victor had. We had talked to numerous fighters, and they believed that he wasn't doing anything," said Rachel Donaire.

"And Victor has been brutally honest with us about everything that's happened," said Rachel Donaire. "And in the end, I'm pretty good at feeling people out, and I just felt like this guy made a mistake, and that' it's not that big of a deal because he did the time, and he's paid for it."

The Donaires still needed to develop a working relationship with Conte, which they did after a lengthy meeting.

"We all sat down with Victor -- meaning myself, Nonito's strength trainer and Nonito, and Victory was telling Nonito about his process of high altitude training, and, being formerly in a nursing program, it made sense when he was talking about the red blood cells and oxygen molecules and things like that," said Rachel Donaire.

"So we've done the hypoxic training, and all of products that we've purchased from him, we send it to Nonito's manager, Cameron Dunkin, who clears it through the Nevada State Athletic Commission," said Rachel Donaire. "So we've taken the proper precautions, and Nonito gets a blood test every two weeks with Victor. So now, we're 100 percent with him, and he's 100 percent with us."
Tags: Andre Ward, Cameron Dunkin, Edison Miranda, Hernan Marquez, Mikkel Kessler, Nonito Donaire, Rachel Donaire, Victor Conte