UFC Signee Danylo Voievodkin Suspended 2 Years for Meldonium

Count recent UFC heavyweight pickup Danylo Voievodkin among those who popped before getting to fight.

According the UFC and Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD) on Thursday, Voievodkin tested positive for meldonium, a substance banned at all times. This test failure took place following his win on Dana White's Contender Series, where he throttled Bailey Schoenfelder in 73 seconds to claim a UFC contract. As a result, Voievodkin has been handed a two-year suspension from competition. Per MMA Fighting, he has since been released by the organization.

Due to the nature of the substance and that it was taken after his DWCS win, CSAD issued the full-length two-year ban. There is no therapeutic use to make it exempt, and the CSAD did not indicate that Voievodkin cooperated with the investigation to potentially reduce his sentence. Meldonium is used to treat heart conditions, but there is no indication that the Ukrainian suffers from any of them to need its use. The drug has been used by athletes, generally in the regions of Russia and former Soviet republics, for decades, with its use coming up in the Olympics as well as tennis—the substance reached international spotlight in 2016 when top tennis player Maria Sharapova was flagged for it.

The statement from CSAD reads as follows:

”Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD) announced today that Danylo Voievodkin, of Fastiv, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, has accepted a 24-month period of ineligibility for a violation of the UFC Anti-Doping Policy (UFC ADP).

“Voievodkin tested positive for the presence of Meldonium, a prohibited at all times substance in the class of Hormone and Metabolic Modulators on the UFC Prohibited List, from an out of competition sample collected from him on October 17, 2024, in Vilnius, Lithuania. The evidence in this case reflected that sometime after Voievodkin competed in his Dana White Contender Series event in September of 2024, where he was awarded a UFC contract, he used Meldonium after he was onboarded into the UFC’S Anti-Doping Program’s (UFC ADP’s) Registered Testing Pool.

“CSAD has further determined that no mitigating factors exist in this case to warrant a departure from the standard 24-month sanction for the use of Meldonium, a non-specified substance under the UFC ADP.

“Voievodkin’s 24-month suspension began on November 10, 2024, the date on which he was placed under a provisional suspension.”