Feb 12 2010
Dope Testing Lab in Canada Winter Olympics the Best in the World
A temporary dope-testing lab in Richmond, British Columbia in Canada is considered to be the most sophisticated lab of its kind in the world. It is already up and running intended for testing athletes in the 2010 Winter Olympics, to be held in Vancouver. The lab is built behind the speed skating oval in Richmond and is under heavy security. The lab has already run more than 200 doping tests, and so far, there is no news of any positive test results of steroids and other banned substances from an athlete. Lab director Christiane Ayotte, who also runs the dope-testing facility in Laval, Quebec, conducted a tour for the news media early this week and mentioned that they are currently conducting pre-competition testing. She said that this was something that the International Olympic Committee implemented recently, considering the possibility that doping agents may be used not only during the competition but in preparation for it.
To catch cheaters before they have a chance of entering another event, the Olympics require an on-site laboratory that is fully equipped and fully staffed and where test results are in within 24 to 36 hours. In a permanent laboratory, a urine or blood sample takes 10 days to process. The lab in Richmond will operate 24 hours a day throughout the Winter Games, staffed with about 35 people. The lab will be processing more than 400 blood tests and 1,600 urine tests, approximately 90 samples per day. An addition 400 tests will be processed in March for the Paralympics.
Half of the lab’s equipment came from the permanent Laval lab while the rest of the equipment, which includes some of the latest technology for sample analysis, came from all over the world. The Richmond lab will be dismantled after the Games and the newly acquired machinery, which Ayotte considers to be part of the 2010 Olympics legacy, will go to the Laval lab.
The dope-testers are confident that their new equipment and advanced techniques have significantly improved and that they are winning the war against steroids and banned substances; although they do not promise that they will catch every cheater this year. Vice President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and Chairman of the IOC medical commission Arne Ljungqvist added that the methods they have today are far better than they were 20 years ago and he believes that the Games are getting cleaner and cleaner every time. Today’s testing equipment can detect traces of substances 1,000 times smaller than five years ago.
As dope testing equipment get more and more sophisticated, so do steroids and banned substances. But Ayotte said that they are confident that everything detectable should be detected by them, and that they have the best people in their lab. Most of the Richmond staff come from the permanent lab in Laval while the rest come from around the world, from WADA-accredited facilities in Cologne, Germany, Paris, Vienna and Lausanne, Switzerland. Top experts in the anti-doping field and lab directors from the last two Olympic Games in Turin, Italy and Beijing, as well as people for the next 2012 Summer Olympics in London are also part of the team.
