WADA Suspends Doha Anti-Doping Lab’s Accreditation

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has suspended the accreditation of the anti-doping lab in Doha, Qatar. The suspension will last a minimum of 4 months.

During the suspension, the Doha lab is unable to carry out any anti-doping analysis of blood or urine samples. All samples that would typically go to the Doha lab will have to be transported to another lab that still has its accreditation. WADA announced that it was suspending the lab’s accreditation in a release this week.

The suspension officially began on November 14 and will last four months from that date. The lab has the option to appeal the suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Otherwise, the Doha lab must address all the issues raised by WADA to be re-accredited once the four months are up.

That makes Doha the 5th lab in 2016 alone to be sanctioned by WADA. Three others saw their accreditation suspended: Lisbon, Portugal in April, Beijing, China a week later and Bloemfontein, South Africa in May. In addition, the Moscow, Russia lab lost its accreditation back in 2015 and had its accreditation officially revoked (the next step after suspension) in April of 2016.

WADA President Craig Reedie commented on the slew of suspensions and sanctions back in May, calling them a result of WADA’s heightened lab monitoring processes.