WADA lifts ban of Rio doping lab for 2016 Olympics

MONTREAL (Reuters) - The Brazilian lab stripped of its accreditation for not meeting standards had its credentials restored by the World Anti-Doping Agency on Wednesday, clearing the way for it to conduct tests at the 2016 Rio Olympics.





The Laboratorio Brasileiro de Controle de Dopagem (LBCD) in Rio de Janeiro was dropped by WADA in 2013 after failing a number of blind tests to detect banned substances.

But WADA's executive committee granted reaccreditation to the Rio lab after it completed the required remedial work stipulated in the International Standard for Laboratories.

"This is essential to properly conduct an Olympic Games," WADA chief Sir Craig Reedie said after the anti-doping agency's Foundation Board meeting at its Montreal headquarters.

"You can't have a situation where athletes go into competition and then find out the laboratory does not do the job

properly."

Samples taken at last year's World Cup in Brazil were flown to Switzerland, adding pressure on Brazilian sport chiefs to get a WADA-approved lab up and running for the 2016 Rio Games.

While operational, the Rio lab will have to quickly get up to operating a full capacity with the Rio Games a little over a year away.

"My people believe they are capable of doing the job and so they have been reaccredited," said Reedie.

"They now have to build up capacity because normally we would ask a laboratory to do 3,000 tests in a year, I don't know how many the IOC will want to do but it will be more than 3,000 in a period of 16 days."





(Editing by Frank Pingue)


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