The International Testing Agency (ITA), in charge of the anti-doping program during the Olympic Games, announced that almost 39% of the athletes participating in Paris 2024 have been tested, and so far five positive cases have been detected. And before the start of the competition, another 35 violations of the anti-doping code were identified by the ITA, including the athlete Florentina Iușco.
Florentina Iușco was suspended a day before the start of the Olympic Games. Youtube photo
At the Olympic Games, the ITA took a total of 6,130 samples (urine, blood, dried blood) at 4,770 controls that targeted 4,150 athletes, the body specifying that this is the “highest proportion” of athletes ever tested. The checks were carried out between the opening of the Olympic Village, in mid-July, and the closing ceremony, on August 11.
The ITA carried out targeted controls at the 2024 Olympic Games, of which “almost two-thirds” were carried out during the competition, and the rest outside it. The countries with the most tested athletes are the United States, France, China, Australia and Great Britain. The agency conducted a testing program several weeks before the Olympics, in which about 90% of the 10,000 participants in the Paris Olympics were checked at least once. During this period, around 40 violations of the anti-doping regulations were identified, ITA stated, including the Romanian Florentina Iuşco.
The five athletes tested positive even during the Olympic Games come from judo (two cases), athletics, swimming and boxing. The substances used by them are anabolic steroids and diuretic drugs. Those athletes, from Afghanistan, Bolivia, Congo, Iraq and Nigeria, were removed from the competition list before it started or were disqualified afterwards. Each of them will be judged by the representatives of the national federations to which they belong.
Florentina Iușco, suspended for two years
Our athlete could not compete at the Olympic Games in Paris, after the Court of Arbitration for Sport partially confirmed, on July 25, a day before the start of the event, an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) after a positive test of the athlete to a prohibited substance. Iusco, an athlete who was going to perform in Paris in the long jump and triple jump, was tested positive for furosemide, a diuretic on the WADA prohibited list, in an anti-doping control outside the competition in April of last year, writes Eurosport.
However, the National Anti-Doping Agency (ANAD) sanctioned her with a reprimand and no period of ineligibility on the grounds that she was not guilty or was not negligent. However, after WADA appealed this decision, the CAS determined that Iusco had failed to demonstrate the standard required to be granted “not guilty or significant negligence” status, and imposed a two-year suspension beginning on February 1 2024.
