By Philip O’Connor
(Reuters) – UFC fans are used to seeing fighters hit the deck, but even they got a shock on Friday when bantamweight Julija Stoliarenko fainted twice as she weighed in, forcing the cancellation of her bout against Julia Avila on Saturday in Las Vegas.
Video footage on social media showed the 27-year-old Lithuanian staggering backwards off the scales before falling. UFC security man Steve Read can be heard asking “Where’s the doc?” as Stoliarenko insists that she is fine while sitting on the stage.
After recovering briefly on a chair, she stepped onto the scales again with Read in close proximity and made the required weight of 135.5 pounds. However, as she stepped off she collapsed again and was later removed from the venue on a stretcher and her fight with Avila was cancelled.
Many combat sports athletes go through a period of severe dehydration in the run-up to weigh-ins, expelling as much water as possible from their bodies in order to make weight and leaving them susceptible to fainting.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
