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MONTREAL (AP) — The only authorized anti-doping laboratory in southeast Asia has been forced to suspend operations, leaving a gap in coverage for much of the region.
The World Anti-Doping Agency has ruled the National Doping Control Center in Thailand can’t test samples for up to six months because of “non-conformities” found during inspections.
That leaves the nearest authorized lab in Beijing, nearly 3,300 kilometers (2,050 miles) away.
A WADA crackdown on substandard testing led to the suspension of the lab in India in August and the complete shutdown of a facility in Kazakhstan in 2017.
That leaves Asia with only five laboratories and large distances between them. They are in Turkey and Qatar in the west, and Japan, China and South Korea in the east.
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