Olympics: Task force increases doping controls: 20,000 tests to Pyeongchang

A task force of the organized sport wants to curb the spread of doping manipulations by drastically increasing the number of tests.

From April to November 2017, the special task force, which includes the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the international sports federations in addition to the IOC, carried out almost 7,000 tests on 4,000 athletes from 62 countries, around 50 percent more than in the same period before the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

“We expect it to be 20,000 tests by the end of the games,”said Richard Budgett, Director of Medicine and Science at the IOC in Lausanne.

One focus was on Russia, which was criticised for its doping system during the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi in 2014. Russian athletes were subjected to 1240 tests, German athletes followed in second place with 844 tests, and the IOC did not report any possible positive tests, as the international sports federations were responsible for this.