Kickboxers who could withstand particularly heavy beatings without going down have prompted sports officials to take a closer look at the possible use of amphetamines by fighters hoping to gain an advantage in the ring.

MYANMAR kickboxers may want to be fast on their feet, quick on their toes, but too much speed in the ring will bring serious repercussion, boxing officials said last week as they expressed concern about the use of amphetamines in the sport.

Days before the national kickboxing championships started on August 25, officials said they were determined to clean up the sport by ensuring fights were fair and that there was an end to the use of illicit drugs to enhance performance.

“The kind of drug we’re worried about is yama, a stimulant substance,” U Soe Than Win, an executive member of the Myanmar Traditional Sports Federation, said, referring to the Myanmar street name for speed.

“If we find out that a boxer is using drugs, he will be immediately expelled from the match.

“There will also be hearing by federation and senior officials from the Sports and Physical Education Department, which will determine what further action will be taken,” he said.

The department’s director general, U Thaung Htike, said some fighters seemed able to withstand an improbable amount of physical punishment and this had prompted sports officials to take a closer look at drug consumption.

“Some boxers just don’t fall down no matter how much they’re hit. We suspect they are using some kind of drug,” said U Thaung Htike, who is also director general at the Ministry of Sports .

As a result of these suspicions, all fighters competing in the 2007 Golden Belt Championship, which runs from August 25 to September 9 at Thuwunna Indoor Stadium in Yangon, will be given a check by doctors for drugs minutes before a match starts.

“The kind of medical tests we usually conduct are to check their health, whether their heart beats are regular, whether they have a fever and that sort of thing.

“We have never tested for drugs before,” U Soe Than Win said.
The tests are cursory affairs, however, with doctors observing boxers’ eyes with a torch, according to U Thaung Htike, who had instructed that the tests be introduced.

All 77 boxers in nine weight divisions will be subject to the checkups during the course of the Golden Belt Championship, which draws the country’s top fighters together for the sport’s showpiece event.

But without blood or urine tests, even if boxers are deemed to be under the influence of drugs, it could be difficult for officials to conclusively prove it. And another serious issue remains unchecked: that of HIV infection.

While kickboxing officials check fighters for contagious skin conditions the day before a match, U Soe Than Win admitted they had not done enough to eliminate the risk of HIV transmission in the ring, especially considering fights can become very bloody affairs.

“We should test the blood and urine of boxers. HIV is a serious issue but, to be frank, we are still trying to conduct these tests,” U Soe Than Win told The Myanmar Times, explaining that a proposal to test for HIV before fights was yet to be presented to the sport’s authorities.

The Ministry of Sport would have to sanction the use of HIV tests before match officials could perform them, he said.

“We haven’t been given any instructions to test for HIV at the moment but we will discuss it at a coming meeting seeing as the media is highlighting the issue,” U Soe Than Win said.

Meanwhile, referees will be working to clean up the sport's image inside the ring by ensuring kickboxing protocol is adhered to at the Golden Belt tournament.

In particular, referees will begin counts as soon as a fighter hits the canvas, U Thaung Htike said.

“If a boxer is down, referees sometimes push the other boxer to the corner first and then come back to start the count. When this happens, the boxer who’s been knocked down gets an advantage of six seconds. The organising committee must not give that kind of advantage to a fighter. Everything must be fair,” he said.

Preparing boxers for conditions at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in December is another concern for officials, although they denied the drug checks were being introduced to avoid national embarrassment at the regional competition being hosted in Bangkok.

The Golden Belt Championship will be an important staging ground for fighters hoping to earn a ticket to the games, with selectors saying they will be watching performances closely.

Seven fighters, each from a different weight class, are expected to be selected to form the Myanmar SEA Games squad.

Golden Belt semifinals will be on September 1 and 2 while final matches will be on September 9.

Big ticket sellers Lone Chaw and Zam Htoo are the only fighters registered in the free-weight division for boxers over 75kg. As such, they will not fight until the 9th, with the winner taking a home a K1-million purse and the runner-up K800,000.

Winners of other weight classes receive K200,000 while runners-up get K100,000.