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The International Testing Agency, in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee, has released its drug testing numbers from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, showing an overall increase in the number of drug tests administered.
According to the data released this week, the International Testing Agency tested a total of 4,150 athletes between July 19 and August 11, producing 6,130 samples, including 4,798 urine samples, 1,136 blood samples and 196 samples using the newer Dried Blood Spot technology. This marks a new record for the number of athletes tested at the Olympic Games, increasing by 4% from 2021 and up 10% from 2016.
The data also reveals that 90% of the athletes competing in Paris were drug tested at least once prior to the start of the Games, with 66% of the tests performed in Paris coming in-competition.
Athletics was the most-tested sport, followed by aquatics. Statistically, this makes the most sense as the two sports have the highest number of events in the Olympic competition, and thus have the most competitors in them. Cycling, rowing, and wrestling athletes were also amongst the most-tested at the Games.
Though exact numbers have not yet been released, the United States was the most-tested athlete delegation at the Games, followed by host-nation France.
Notably, China was third on the list, despite a stream of swimming-related doping controversy. A few months prior to the start of the Olympics, it was revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine at a national team training camp just a month before the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo. However, all 23 athletes were allowed to compete in Tokyo as the positive tests were ruled to be the result of contamination in the kitchen of the training facility.
Due to the controversy, multiple Chinese swimmers reported that they were being tested more frequently than other countries in Paris, which was confirmed by earlier testing data released by the ITA prior to the start of the Games. World Record holder Qin Haiyang even went as far as to call the increased testing at the Games a trick by the European and American teams to interrupt his sleep and training cycles.
The ITA has only reported 5 positive drug tests from the samples taken during the Olympics, with the athletes coming from Afghanistan, Bolivia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, and Nigeria. However, the ITA had previously caught and suspended over 40 athletes in the months leading up to the Olympics.
All of the samples collected in Paris will be stored for the next 10 years and re-tested as drug-testing technologies continue to advance.
