Record levels of testing ahead of Paris Olympics, says Howman
MONACO: Substantially more testing of athletics competitors were tested before the Paris Olympic Games than in the lead-up to previous major championships.
David Howman, chair of the Athletics Integrity Unit, has shone a light on some of the key testing statistics in the 10-month lead-up to the Games and hailed the increased collaboration with the World Athletics’ Member Federations and National Anti-Doping Organisations.
Of the 7,102 Out-of-Competition (OOC) tests carried out on Olympic athletes in the official lead-up period to the Olympic Games (27 September 2023 to 26 July 2024), 2,714 OOC tests (38.3 per cent) were conducted by the AIU (focused on the elite athletes in the AIU Registered Testing Pool) and 4,388 OOC tests (61.7 per cent) by NADOs (generally focused on the athletes in the tiers below the AIU RTP)..
Close cooperation resulted in fewer athletes competing in Paris without any OOC tests. Ultimately, only 11 per cent of athletics competitors in Paris had no OOC tests, compared to 27 per cent in 2023 (World Athletics Championships in Budapest) and 33 per cent in 2022 (World Athletics Championships in Eugene).
Some 66 per cent of the athletics competitors in Paris had at least three OOC tests (versus 45 per cent and 44 per cent in Budapest and Eugene respectively).
“These are unprecedented levels of testing in athletics; tremendous improvements, and we are very pleased to have attained them in an Olympic year, with the highest prizes at stake,” declared Howman.
“The work we have been doing – monitoring, evaluating and publishing domestic testing levels in our sport – has borne critical fruit. We have seen the responses of various Member Federations and NADOs to the requirements in athletics and most have really risen to challenge of ensuring they meet reasonable minimum testing requirements for their nation’s athletes competing in Paris.
“The increase in domestic OOC testing ensures that the AIU can maintain its sharp focus on intelligence-led target testing of the elite competitors who are at the top of the world rankings, while being confident that the next tier of athletes is subject to a reasonable level of control via domestic testing programmes.”
In the lead-up to Paris, the AIU’s intelligence-led anti-doping programme resulted in 32 Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs), with 17 further cases still pending. Out of these 49 cumulative cases, 17 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAFs) are from OOC tests while 32 are from In-Competition tests.
Other noteworthy statistics include a rise in the average number of tests per athlete, increasing from 4.2 tests per athlete in Budapest to 5.4 tests per athlete in Paris.
For OOC tests only, the number rose from 2.8 tests per athlete in Budapest to 3.8 tests per athlete in Paris. Despite a smaller contingent of athletics competitors at the multi-sport Olympic Games, compared to last year’s World Championships in Budapest, the level of testing increased by 19 per cent (OOC tests and IC tests combined) and by 28 per cent (OOC tests only) for Paris-bound athletes versus Budapest-bound athletes.
There was clear improvement too in testing for Top-8 finishers, with 88 per cent of Top-8 finishers boasting at least three OOC tests, improving on 84 per cent in Budapest and 81 per cent in Eugene. Just two per cent of Top-8 finishers in Paris had no OOC tests, compared with six per cent for both Budapest and Eugene.
Howman said: “It is critical, for the integrity and credibility of athletics, that we are transparent about our testing and the strides we are making to protect the sport from doping. These detailed statistics show consistent progress is being made in levelling the playing field.
“It is the AIU’s policy to be as transparent as possible when it comes to how anti-doping works in our sport and we encourage other international sports to do likewise and publish their own testing figures.”
Regarding specific NADOs, the AIU Chair highlighted “noticeable efforts” from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to have no athlete with no OOC test (the USA had the largest athletics team at Paris 2024 with 117 competitors) while the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) also reported all 52 athletics competitors in Paris had at least three OOC tests.
As it does each year, the AIU Board will assess the domestic anti-doping programmes applicable to the teams of each national federation and determine whether any specific action is required under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules to ensure proper standards are achieved.
The board evaluation this year will also take into account more qualitative criteria in addition to the testing levels.
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