Currently without a WADA-approved doping lab after a 2013 closure, Brazil is on the edge of a big step in the lead up to the 2016 Rio Olympics – the nation’s new doping lab could earn its WADA accreditation by next month.
Brazil’s former doping control laboratory had its WADA (World Anti-Drug Agency) accreditation pulled in 2013 after it started to show a tendency for producing false positive tests that were discovered when samples got tested at other laboratories.
That left Rio without a WADA-accredited lab when it hosted soccer’s World Cup, forcing the event to ship all of its drug testing to a Swiss lab.
But the Brazilian Authority in Doping Control (abbreviated as the “ABCD”) believes that won’t be the case by next summer’s Olympic Games. Globo.com reports that the once-closed Rio lab has been reformed, completed the last step of WADA’s testing process and could get its accreditation back in May.
Marco Aurelio Klein, the national secretary of ABCD, said the lab “has passed the tests,” and added that “our expectations are favorable” for a quick re-accreditation.
WADA will meet in Montreal, Canada on May 13, and the lab could official earn its approved status back then. If that happens, the lab will start doing some doping control testing for events in July of this year, about a year out of the next Olympic Games.
Doping control facilities are accredited yearly by WADA, so the Rio lab would likely have its results and methods from the first year examined by WADA before officially becoming the test site for the 2016 Olympic Games.
I hope Brazil takes doping offence more seriously.
That pic gives me a great idea for my next fancy dress event . I am so going as a ASDA urine tester.
Brazil and anti-doping lab is an oxymoron