Rio faces doping lab struggle
Brazilian authorities face a ‘big challenge’ to build a credible doping lab in time for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the head of the Swiss anti-doping lab, Martial Saugy, said yesterday.
Saugy’s lab is responsible for testing samples during next year’s soccer World Cup in Brazil after the Rio lab was stripped of its WADA licence to test for banned substances last year.
The scientist, however, said building a lab from scratch capable of processing the thousands of tests conducted during Olympic Games in time for the 2016 Olympics would be a “tremendous task”, even with more than two years to go.
“This is a big challenge. It means now the laboratory has been revoked and, to our knowledge, they are rebuilding a new building for the laboratory of the Olympics in Rio, and they have to rebuild the entire team,” he told Reuters Television.
“Of course the Summer Olympics, with 12,000 athletes, have many, many more samples than you have at (the) Sochi (Winter Olympics) or during the World Cup, for example,” Saugy said.
The World AntiDoping Agency ruled in August that the Rio laboratory did not meet the International Standard for Laboratories (ISL) and revoked its WADA accreditation.
Samples taken at the World Cup will now be flown across the Atlantic to Switzerland, raising doubts that positive tests from players will be discovered before their next matches at the tournament.