PARIS: Nearly 90 percent of all participants at the Paris Olympics were tested as part of this year’s pre-game anti-doping program, the International Testing Agency (ITA) announced on Wednesday.
The ITA said it had conducted more than 32,600 doping tests this year, an increase of around 45 percent compared to the tests carried out on athletes in the previous six months.
These include weightlifting, which accounts for a quarter of the positive cases in the history of the Summer Olympics, as well as triathlon and open water swimming, where every athlete has been tested at least once. Gymnastics follows at 99 percent.
In athletics, which has historically produced the most failed Olympic trials, the figure is 89 percent.
ITA statistics suggest that Chinese athletes have been particularly targeted by testers as the doping controversy continues to escalate in Paris.
It follows revelations in April that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive before the Tokyo Games three years ago, but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted they were victims of food contamination.
Statistics from the testing agency for the top 25 national delegations show that 98 percent of China’s Olympic competitors have been tested multiple times this year. Only the Authorized Neutral Athletes (AIN) of Russia and Belarus and the Hungarians came close, both at 97 percent.
World Aquatics said on Tuesday that Chinese swimmers competing in Paris had been tested “an average of 21 times each” since January 1, compared with the Americans six times, the Italians five times, the Australians, the British and the French four times.
The ITA list revealed that the only delegation to undergo 100% testing were the AIN participants – consisting of Russians and Belarusians – although there are only 33 of them according to the latest figures.
Meanwhile, only 63 percent of soccer players were tested.
