schema:articleBody
| - The International Testing Agency (ITA), whose work has slowed during the coronavirus pandemic, is preparing to "increase" its capacities during the summer in order to "adapt" to the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, it announced Friday. The COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in the cancellation and postponement of many international competitions with the Olympics pushed back to 2021. This has made "doping control activities worldwide impossible as planned", said the ITA in a statement, the day after a meeting of its council, chaired by the former French Sports Minister Valerie Fourneyron. The ITA is prepared "to increase its capacities during the summer in order to intelligently conduct the planned or reprogrammed tests". The ITA was mandated by the International Olympic Committee to conduct the doping control program before and during the Tokyo Olympics. "The Board was informed that the anti-doping program for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is currently being adapted for a delivery in 2021," said a statement. The Lausanne-based agency, which began operations in July 2018, also announced Friday it has completed its mission to re-analyse samples taken during the 2012 London Olympics which revealed "more than 80 anti-doping rule violations and led to reallocations of medals." Regarding the 2016 Rio Olympics, the strategy is "to wait as long as possible until detection methods that are not available at the time of sampling become so," an ITA spokesman told AFP. The deadline for re-analysis of the samples for the 2016 Rio Olympics is 10 years and therefore runs until August 2026, the agency said. The ITA also indicated that it is finalising the construction in Switzerland, in a place "which will not be revealed", of a centralised storage site of samples taken by national anti-doping agencies. These samples will be kept for up to 10 years. ebe/dj/iwd
|