Jamaica's drug-testing policy to undergo 'extraordinary' audit over alleged gaps

The World Anti-Doping Agency expressed its frustration after plans to launch an 'extraordinary' audit into allegations that Jamaica's athletes were rarely drug-tested before the London 2012 Games were pushed back until 2014.

According to the Guardian, WADA was invited by the Jamaican prime minister to investigate revelations from Renee Anne Shirley, the former executive editor of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission, that there was a significant gap of no testing between March and July 2012 while the country's athletes prepared for the Olympic Games.

However, JADCO has since told WADA it cannot meet the commission until next year, the report said.

In August, Shirley revealed substantial flaws in JADCO's organisation, including that it had no Whereabouts Information Officer to keep track of its athletes out of competition, only one full-time doping control officer and that the committee in charge of reviewing the legitimacy of medical prescriptions for athletes was without a chairman and had never met, the report added.

However, it is her central allegation, that only one random test was conducted in Jamaica between March and July 2012 that most concerns WADA, especially given that five athletes who competed at London 2012 have since tested positive, including the former 100m world record holder Asafa Powell, the Olympic 4x100m silver medallist Sherone Simpson and the sprinter Veronica Campbell-Brown, the report further said.