Massive Anti-Doping Testing Facility Unveiled for the Olympics, Will Run 24x7 To Screen Athletes

Olympic Drug Testing BBC

The BBC just got a look at the newly-unveiled anti-doping testing facility that'll be used at the London Olympics this summer, and it is rightfully hailed as the most high-tech, complete such facility ever conceived. We're talking thousands of workers, testing going 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in a space estimated at the size of seven tennis courts.

The Olympic Committee partnered with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, which donated the facility's millions and millions of dollars worth of lab equipment. We haven't been given all that much detail into how the testing will be done, or if it'll differ in any major way from the standards of drug-testing. But they did note that every single medalist, as well as more than half of all Olympic athletes in general, will be tested. Results will be available in about 48 hours, thanks to the nonstop pace of testing that's planned.

That testing will be done by upwards of a thousand workers, including "a team of more than 150 anti-doping scientists, flown in from all over the world," which will do the final analysis to see if a sample sets off any alarm bells. There'll be over 400 samples coming through the Essex-based facility every day, so they'll need all the help they can get.

Short of an alternate league for performance-enhanced athletes, this seems like about the best way to ensure a fair Olympic games.

[BBC]