Anti-doping controls for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will be a record

The anti-doping fight of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games preparations have been underway for months. More than a thousand people will monitor around 4,000 athletes during the competition.

All this will be under the watchful eye of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)recently criticized for its handling of the case of Chinese swimmers who tested positive but were not sanctioned before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Created in 2018 and partly funded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)the International Testing Agency (ITA) plans, organizes and manages the results of anti-doping controls during the Games.

It already has two editions of experience: Tokyo in 2021 and Beijing in 2022. He will be fully in charge from the opening of the Olympic Village around July 18th.

In fact, since mid-April, it has already assumed part of the control and is in dialogue with the international federations and national anti-doping agencies to better direct the controls.

“If there are athletes who dope, they will do it before the Olympic Games, so the pre-Games phase is very important”explains a spokeswoman for the ITA to the AFP.

Qualifying for the Games ends late and therefore everyone who can secure a place must be monitored – that is, almost 40,000 athletes out of the 10,000 who finally obtain a place for the event.

In the last few Olympic Games of summer, three years ago in Japan, 6,200 samples were taken during the competition in some 4,000 athletes, who produced a handful of positive cases.

In the Olympic Games of Beijing in 2022the case of the young Russian skater Kamila Valievawho tested positive for trimetazidine before the event and was subsequently suspended for four years, made a huge impact.