MEDICAL CLAIM: Clay doped

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 24

MEDICAL CLAIM: Clay doped

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON. The leading British boxing medical expert says that watching the Joe Frazier-Cassius Clay fight on closed-circuit television gave him “the distinct impression that Clay had been doped.”

Dr Joseph Blonstein, the chairman and senior medical officer of the British Amateur Boxing Association, and the president of the medical commission of the World Amateur Boxing Association expressed his suspicions in the authoritative medical journal, the "General Practitioner.”

Frazier beat Clay on points over 15 rounds to become the undisputed world heavy-weight champion. “I am not saying Clay doped himself,” said Dr Blonstein. “He could have been doped without knowing anything about it. “How else can you explain his eyes that were glazed from the beginning of the fight? As a medical man I took careful notice of these sights, and I came to a considered conclusion.” ■ Dr Blonstein, speaking to Ken Gardner of the Sunday newspaper, the "People” and Alan Bums of the “Sunday Mirror,” told them: “I thought the fight was a complete phoney. I have never seen anything so bad in 40 years I have been watching boxing. Clay’s actions “I saw the fight on a closed-circuit television and again in slow motion, and to me Clay’s actions were mysterious. His eyes looked glazed, and in all the major fights I have seen Clay, I have never seen him move so slowly.”

The British physician and surgeon said: “Even allowing for his long lay-off and possibly some neglect during his training, there was no reason for his lack of footwork. He was apathetic, indifferent, uninterested. Anybody who knows anything about boxing could see that this was not the real Clay. “There is a possibility he could have been stale through over-training, or for psychological reasons. But there could have been another reason. In the closeups I got the distinct impression that Clay had been doped.”

Tuna ships.— Three Japanese tuna fiishing craft are due at Lyttelton today. They are the Kodai Mani No. 8. the Taisei Maru No. 8 and the Manryo Maru No. 5. Members of the Japanese fleet tuna fishing off the New Zealand coast, they are believed to be coming in for fuel, stores and water.