Rio Games drug lab suspended after 'disturbing' technical errors

[n2doc]

Bonnie Ford

The Rio de Janeiro laboratory responsible for processing all athletes' drug test samples at the Summer Olympics has been suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA spokesman Ben Nichols confirmed to ESPN on Friday.

The news was first reported by the New Zealand website stuff.co.nz, which quoted outgoing WADA director general David Howman saying the suspension was due to technical errors and called it "pretty disturbing."

WADA issued a statement Friday saying the lab was shut down Wednesday and is prohibited from "carrying out all anti-doping analyses on urine and blood samples."

The lab has 21 days to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

In the meantime, all samples will be transported "with a demonstrable chain of custody" to another WADA-accredited laboratory "as soon as possible," according to the statement.

more

http://espn.go.com/olympics/story/_/id/16480744/rio-games-drug-lab-suspended-wada-technical-errors-found

[Eugene]

1. The Rio games are going to be so wonderful.

/sarcasm

So, what else can go wrong?