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WADA suspends laboratory used for Euro 2016 & Tour de France

Olympic Sports

France's main anti-doping laboratory in Paris has been provisionally suspended from carrying out any tests by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

The deeply-embarrassing news for the French anti-doping agency centre at Chatenay-Malabry comes only two weeks after Paris was named as the host of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In a statement, WADA said it was provisionally suspending the lab's accreditation "due to analytical issues".

The suspension took effect on Sept. 24 and will remain in place "pending disciplinary proceedings being carried out by an independent disciplinary committee".

During this period, all samples at the lab, including those which have already tested positive for a banned substance, must be transported to another WADA-accredited centre.

WADA currently has 32 accredited labs around the world but five of them are now suspended, with Paris joining Bogota, Lisbon, Los Angeles and Mexico City in the agency's bad books.

The Moscow lab lost its accreditation in Nov. 2015 and is currently being audited with a view to regaining its WADA status, while Beijing, Doha, Madrid and Rio have all had recent bans, too.

WADA routinely checks all of its labs' equipment and procedures to make sure they are not only able to catch drugs cheats but also protect clean athletes from false positives. The Paris lab was used by UEFA during last year's Euros and does the bulk of the testing for the Tour de France.

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