By Karolos Grohmann
MILAN, Feb 3 (Reuters) - More than 90% of athletes competing at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics have been tested at least once for banned substances ahead of the Games, the International Testing Agency (ITA) said on Tuesday.
Around 2,800 athletes from more than 90 countries will be competing at the Games which start on Friday.
"The International Testing Agency (ITA) concludes the pre-Games anti-doping program for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 and reports that at least
92% of athletes were tested a minimum of one time ahead of the event."
The ITA, which has been conducting all drug testing for the Olympics since the Tokyo Games held in 2021, is in charge of all pre-Games testing as well as testing during the 16 days of competition.
"A total of over 7,100 doping controls were conducted during the pre-Games phase in the six months ahead of the Games," the ITA said.
It said it had particularly focused on high-risk disciplines since August 2025, and among those sports 91% of athletes were tested at least once, and 66% at least three times leading up to the Olympics.
"Of the 8% not tested athletes, 28% belong to high-risk disciplines. Careful attention will be placed on these athletes by the ITA during the Games," it said.
The sports which had the highest percentage of conducted tests were ski jumping, biathlon, luge and both speedskating and short-track speedskating, while the national Olympic Committees with the highest percentage of testing were China, the United States, Germany and Spain, with over 94% of their athletes tested.
With doping being a major concern a few years back, the International Olympic Committee decided to have comprehensive pre-Games testing in order to root out as many drug cheats as possible before they arrived at the Games.
Dozens of medals had to be reallocated retroactively from past Olympics, especially London 2012 and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, years after the competitions, following re-testing of samples from past Games with newer methods.
Italian biathlete Rebecca Passler was excluded from the Milano Cortina Olympics on Monday after testing positive for banned substances in a doping test conducted by the country's national anti-doping agency.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Ed Osmond)
