Drops of dried blood to track down doped athletes. Following a meeting of the governing bodies of the World Anti-Doping Agency, a new screening technique was adopted. Its first experiment will take place on July 24 during the Tokyo Olympics. “I really think it could really be a game-changer in anti-doping”, affirmed Witold Banka, president of the WADA after the adoption of a document establishing the procedures to be followed and the regulatory framework of this new technique. This new methodology, called DBS (Dried Blood Spot), “Can potentially have a significant positive impact for both athletes and anti-doping organizations”, welcomed Witold Banka during a press point on Friday.
At the end of 2019, WADA launched a research program on the DBS technique in partnership with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and several national anti-doping organizations. “We aim to test some elements of the DBS technique at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics this year, before using them on a regular basis during the Beijing Games early next year.”, explained the director of the Science-Medicine department of WADA, Olivier Rabi. In June 2020, when WADA announced that it was working on this new method, the agency planned to introduce this dried blood drop system for the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing in 2022. Finally, WADA stepped up its process. strategy to adapt it to the highly criticized Tokyo Summer Games.
This technique consists of taking a few drops of blood from the athlete’s fingertip or shoulder, then transferring them to a kind of blotting paper before sending them for analysis. With a small volume of blood required, the method is the same as that of the test to screen for tramadol in cycling. A less intrusive technique, less expensive to store or transport, and which can detect certain unstable substances by rapidly “stabilizing” blood samples to the nearest anti-doping laboratory. For WADA, these tests could also be distributed in remote places. The technique is in addition to the tests already existing in the world anti-doping program, such as urine and blood tests.
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