The Finnish Center for Integrity in Sports (FINCIS) carried out more doping tests in 2022 than a year earlier. The number of tests is the result of a significant amount of international co-operation.
In 2022, FINCIS carried out a total of 3,169 doping tests in Finland and abroad. A year earlier, the corresponding figure was 2,745. The majority of the tests (2,646) were conducted as part of FINCIS’ national testing programme. The three most tested individual sports last year were athletics (298), fitness (207) and cross-country skiing (189). Among team sports, ice hockey (217) and football (160) had the highest number of tests. There were four anti-doping rule violations in FINCIS’ national doping control programme and one case is still pending.
Katja Huotari, Doping Control Manager at FINCIS, stresses that numerical test statistics are a good way to measure and monitor doping control, but they do not directly reflect all the work that is done in co-operation with various parties before the tests.
“In addition to the number of tests, it is important how the athletes to be tested are selected, how the testing is timed, what samples are taken and what analyses are performed on the samples. Finnish athletes are also tested by international sports federations, both in and out of competition. FINCIS is actively co-operating with international federations in the planning and implementation of testing,” says Huotari.
International co-operation and test planning is facilitated by the fact that the testing history of athletes is available to the partners in a management system maintained by WADA. In the national testing programme, FINCIS tests Finnish athletes at home and abroad as well as foreign athletes training or competing in Finland.
The test statistics indicate the number of doping test samples taken, both urine and blood samples, excluding the blood samples taken for the Athlete Biological Passport, which FINCIS took a total of 341 as part of the national testing programme. The test statistics do not directly reflect the number of athletes tested, which is lower than the number of samples, because some athletes are tested several times a year and, in addition, an athlete may have a urine sample and several blood samples taken at the same test event.
Further information:
Susanna Sokka
FINCIS – Communication Manager
tel.: +358 40 740 7477
susanna.sokka@suek.fi