Less than five months before the start of the Olympic Games in Paris, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) late Monday suspended operations at Africa’s sole accredited laboratory.
The agency announced the six-month suspension of the Bloemfontein lab in South Africa due to errors in the method of testing for athlete doping.
Samples collected from Bloemfontein “will now be transferred to another WADA-accredited laboratory,” the agency said. “This is to ensure continued high-quality sample analysis, but also to maintain athletes’ confidence in this process and the broader anti-doping system.”
The nearest lab to South Africa is in Qatar – some 6,600 kilometers away from Bloemfontein.
Collecting samples from remote training centers and transporting them over long distances to labs poses risks of sample degradation and unfit testing.
These labs can also participate in testing all future samples collected from athletes in Africa, as part of a global anti-doping program before the Olympic Games in Paris, which begin on July 26.
WADA said restrictions on Bloemfontein’s analytical testing method under the Mass Spectrometry technique were first imposed in September.
The agency, headquartered in Montreal, said “multiple non-conformities” in Bloemfontein’s operations were observed last month by a committee of experts advising the agency.
All testing at Bloemfontein was suspended as of last Friday, although the suspension could be lifted before the six-month period if the lab complies with required international standards.
