It’s a major move, just over a year from the start of the Olympics in France. The French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) laboratory, formerly located in Châtenay-Malabry, was officially transferred in mid-May to the Paris-Saclay university campus in Orsay, AFLD President Dominique said on Wednesday. Lawrence.
“The WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency, editor’s note) accreditation for the Olympics is in progress. We can say that we are ready. It had to be done a year before the Olympics,” she said at a press conference. The International Testing Agency (ITA) will officiate during the Olympic Games for the organization of anti-doping, and the AFLD will be the logistics provider. The AFLD laboratory, completely moved in mid-May to Essonne, will be the only one authorized to analyze the samples that will be taken during the Olympic period.
A doubling of employees during the Olympics
The AMA accreditation, necessary to be able to officiate during the Olympic Games, should be obtained “at the beginning of next year”, specified Dominique Laurent. “We are on schedule,” she said. “The Châtenay-Malabry site has been abandoned and now the laboratory has been transferred to Orsay within the University of Paris-Saclay, and is working,” she added. Nearly 45 people work in this laboratory, which analyzed more than 10,212 samples in 2022, 75 of which revealed abnormal results (0.71%).
During previous Olympic Games, the average of samples over the competition period was “around 6,000 for the Olympic Games”, and “nearly 2,000 for the Paralympics”, according to the secretary general of the AFLD Jérémy Roubin. This influx of samples to be analyzed over a short period will lead to the “doubling” of the laboratory’s workforce, explained Dominique Laurent. “For the period of the Olympics, the laboratory will grow to nearly 90 people, many of whom will come from other anti-doping laboratories around the world,” she said.