Sports: Drugs

(asked on 26th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many tests were undertaken by UK Anti-Doping in the UK during the periods (1) January to March 2019, (2) April to June 2019, (3) July to September 2019, (4) October to December 2019, (5) January to March, (6) April to June, and (7) July to September.


Answered by
Baroness Barran Portrait
Baroness Barran
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 3rd November 2020

UK Anti-Doping defines a test as any attempt to test a single athlete in a single Sample Collection Session. During the periods:

  1. January to March 2019, it conducted 3,803 tests

  2. April to June 2019, it conducted 2,212 tests

  3. July to September 2019, it conducted 2,943 tests

  4. October to December 2019, it conducted 2,789 tests

  5. January to March 2020, it conducted 2,512 tests

  6. April to June 2020, it conducted 126 tests. The drop in testing during this period was due to UK Anti-Doping’s decision in March 2020 to significantly reduce its testing programme due to Covid-19.

  7. July to September 2020. The testing statistics for this period have not yet been released.


All testing in the first quarter of 2020-2021 (April-June 2020) conducted in the UK was done in England. However, this does not mean that athletes from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales were not tested during this time. UK Anti-Doping publishes its testing figures on a quarterly basis and combines the figures for blood and urine samples. This ensures transparency of its testing activity, while protecting the confidential methodology which goes into planning a testing programme.

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