Montreal (dpa) – In 2021, despite the ongoing corona pandemic, the number of doping controls worldwide rose almost to a normal test level again.
According to the World Anti-Doping Agency, around 274,254 doping samples were taken by 256 anti-doping organizations last year, it said in a statement on Thursday. In the first Corona year, the number had fallen to 168,256 samples. In 2019 there were 305,881 samples worldwide, Wada said.
While the level of competition tests was still lower than before the pandemic due to many canceled sporting events, the number of out-of-competition tests over the past twelve months was higher than in 2019.
“The latest testing numbers show that the anti-doping community has managed to maintain the high level of testing despite renewed severe restrictions in many parts of the world due to omicron and other variants of the virus,” said Wada President Witold Banka.