(Reuters) - British heavyweight Dillian Whyte has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the UK Anti-Doping agency (UKAD), which on Friday withdrew a charge against the boxer for a doping violation.
Whyte, 31, won the WBC interim heavyweight title on July 20 this year by beating Colombian Oscar Rivas on points but his interim champion status was provisionally suspended later that month over an irregular urine sample given prior to the fight.
Whyte, who always denied any wrongdoing, was also removed from the WBC rankings pending an investigation by the WBC.
UKAD had charged Whyte as his sample before the Rivas fight "indicated the presence of two metabolites of a steroid".
But on Friday the agency said there was nothing in Whyte's "longitudinal urinary profile" to suggest he had used steroids.
"UK Anti-Doping and the professional boxer, Dillian Whyte, can today jointly confirm that Mr Whyte was charged with an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) earlier this year, but that this charge has now been withdrawn," said a UKAD statement.
"UKAD is satisfied that the presence of the very low amounts of metabolites in his 20 June 2019 sample was not caused by any fault, negligence or wrongdoing on Mr Whyte’s part and, given the circumstances, could not have affected the fight between Mr Whyte and Mr Rivas on 20 July 2019," added the statement
Whyte, who is fighting Poland's Mariusz Wach on Saturday on the undercard of the world heavyweight title rematch between Mexico's champion Andy Ruiz Jr and Britain's Anthony Joshua in Saudi Arabia, posted the UKAD statement on Twitter.
"For those who believed in me I won’t forget you. To those who didn’t, I won’t forgive you and I know who you are," he wrote on his official account.
(Reporting by Richard Martin; editing by Ken Ferris)