The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has shut down Rio’s drug testing lab just weeks before the Olympic games begin, the organization announced on June 24.
Advertisement
With an eye on the Olympics, Brazil invested 188 million Reais ($56 million) in new installations and equipment for the lab, which was recertified by WADA a year ago.
The Rio Olympics is set to commence on August 5.
The World Anti-Doping Agency said Friday it has suspended the lab’s accreditation due to “non-conformity with the International Standard for Laboratories”.
According to the BBC, Rio’s lab is the sixth to be suspended by WADA in the last few months, and there are 28 other labs worldwide that are accredited by WADA and able to perform the tests.
A lab tech performs an anti doping procedure for the the 2012 London Olympics.
If not, the testing of athletes’ samples will have to take place at other WADA approved laboratories, the closest of which is located in Bogota, Colombia.
The Rio facility, known as LADETEC, has been created to do as many as 6,000 tests during the Games, but blood and urine samples will now have to be sent overseas, as they were during the 2014 World Cup.
The ruling on the Rio lab forces a highly inefficient scenario that will cause delays before all Olympic medallists – who must be drug tested – have the green light from anti-doping authorities in the immediate aftermath of their performances.
Soccer’s world governing body, FIFA, had to cover costs.
“The lab expects its operations to return to normal in July after a visit from WADA’s technical committee”, a statement from the lab reads.
The suspension will last at least until January 2017, and in the meantime the samples will be transported to another WADA-accredited laboratory worldwide, WADA Director General Olivier Niggli assured.
Advertisement
The suspended Rio lab actually did lose its accreditation back in August of 2013, which was why it missed the 2014 World Cup, and it’s not looking good for the lab considering that they were just reinstated by WADA past year.
