The ITA is currently working on closing testing gaps on a global scale to ensure that intelligence-led and effective testing is conducted globally on prospective athletes through a coordinated effort amongst all anti-doping organisations between now and the Games.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are still several months away, but the anti-doping programme for the world’s next major sporting event is already underway. Next to preparing its on-site activities, the ITA has launched an extensive pre-Games program in the important phase leading up to the event. The organisation leads the ITA Tokyo 2020 Pre-Games Expert Group, a task force of specialists from International Federations (IFs) – representing both team and individual sports – and National and Regional Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs/RADOs) representing all five world continents. The ITA also serves as the group’s secretariat and organises its meetings and activities.
The ITA Tokyo 2020 Pre-Games Expert Group is responsible for reviewing available anti-doping information on athletes who are likely to compete in the Games. It performs a risk assessment and shares testing recommendations with other anti-doping organisations (ADOs) to ensure that effective testing is conducted globally through a coordinated effort. The group had already taken up its work a year ago prior to the postponement of Tokyo 2020 to the year 2021. After the postponement, it re-calibrated its efforts in order to start issuing recommendations in line with an updated risk assessment and adapted qualification lists. Throughout the entire pre-Games period, the group will issue up to 26,000 recommendations on 33 sports disciplines to ADOs all over the world and also monitor their implementation.
In December 2020, the ITA Pre-Games Expert Group marked the continuity of the Tokyo 2020 anti-doping program by issuing recommendations targeting around 6,000 individual athletes and 124 teams. The launch was accompanied by a webinar explaining the guidelines and necessary follow-up actions to almost 200 members of IFs, NADOs and RADOs worldwide.
During the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, the ITA will be handling the anti-doping program on-site from the opening of the Olympic Villages to the end of the competitions. In total, the ITA plans to collect around 6.000 samples before and during the Games. The ITA will also be responsible for the results management and case handling.
The ITA has been entrusted by the IOC and with the full support of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to roll out and manage a global long-term storage and re-analysis program. This follows the successful discovery of a high number of anti-doping rule violations through previous re-analysis projects. Samples from the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and all other subsequent Olympic Games will be retained in a dedicated facility for further analysis.
Long-term storage (LTS) of samples has emerged as one of the most impactful strategies to protect clean athletes and deter doping over the past decade. Today, under the World Anti-Doping Code, samples can be stored for up to 10 years after their initial analysis and still retain the same legal impact if re-tested and prosecuted. This allows them to be re-analysed for previously undetected substances, should scientific breakthroughs enable new technologies and analysis methods.
LTS and further analysis is also part of the global anti-doping strategy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and a requirement of the International Standard for Testing and Investigations to have such a strategy documented. The further analysis of samples collected during Beijing 2008 and London 2012 has so far produced over 130 Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs), which clearly highlights the effectiveness of such a program to provide dissuasion and the ability to further detect cheating. Therefore, the IOC had announced during the World Anti-Doping Conference in Katowice in November 2019 to dedicate a budget to develop a global LTS program and to provide a systematic approach to enable International Federations (IFs) and National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs) to store their samples collected prior to the Games at no additional cost.
Tasked with the development and management of this global program, the ITA has established a highly secured Centralised Long-Term Storage Facility (CLTSF) which is now operational and ready to receive samples. All summer IFs and NADOs are encouraged to store samples collected during the time leading up to Tokyo 2020 and any following Olympic event (‘pre-Games period’) to the CLTSF with the support of the ITA, who will coordinate the shipment, referencing and storage of the samples. In complement with the work done by the ITA Tokyo 2020 Pre-Games Expert Group, which issues recommendations to participating IFs and NADOs to close possible testing gaps ahead of the Games, this will constitute the most extensive pre-Games anti-doping program ever implemented.
The selection of samples for storage will be based on a risk assessment carried out by each organisation. The storage of samples and logistics will not incur any additional costs for the participating IFs and NADOs, as it is covered by the abovementioned budget. As the agency tasked with implementing the Olympic anti-doping programs, the ITA will also store all samples it collects during the Games in the CLTSF.
Organisations storing their samples in ITA’s facility retain ownership and authority over them and can request re-analysis at any time – in that case, the ITA would arrange a transfer of the sample to a designated WADA-accredited laboratory. For this initiative to be a success, close cooperation between the ITA and all WADA-accredited laboratories involved is essential.
Before the pre-Games period, the ITA presented the detailed plans and processes of the Tokyo 2020 anti-doping program to make sure that all involved parties – the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), the Chefs de Mission etc. – receive all necessary information regarding all clean sport activities at the Games.
Delegates of the ITA team are briefing representatives of National Olympic Committees participating in the Tokyo 2020 Games on the anti-doping program.
1 June 2019
4 January 2021
4 July 2020
