BEIJING, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- A total of 6,130 samples were collected in the doping control program during the Paris Olympic Games, covering 39% of all participating athletes and nearly all the delegations, the International Testing Agency (ITA) announced.
The number of samples collected in Paris was a four percent increase compared to Tokyo 2020 and ten percent higher than Rio 2016.
Up until Thursday, five anti-doping rule violations were reported based on results from samples the ITA collected during Paris 2024 where the vast majority of doping controls implemented were targeted based on risk assessment.
The ITA also carried out an extensive pre-Games testing program conducted in the six months leading up to the event in which nearly 90 percent of all participating athletes underwent testing at least once before the start of the Games. The ITA can also report over 40 anti-doping rule violations.
The ITA sent a team of over 30 anti-doping experts to oversee the execution of the anti-doping program which was carried out by the national anti-doping organisation Agence Francaise de Lutte contre le Dopage.
All samples collected during Paris 2024 will be kept in ITA's Centralised Long-Term Storage Facility (CLTSF) for up to ten years and will be selected for re-analysis by the ITA at a later point in time if and when technological or scientific developments allow for more advanced analytical methods. ■