--- description: A report by the World Anti-Doping Agency says there were “serious failings” in the anti-doping program at the 2016 Rio Olympic Summer Games. title: 'Serious Failings' in Doping Tests at Rio 2016 Olympics image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Sports](/section/sports/) ## Sports Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # World Anti-Doping Agency Report Reveals 'Serious Failings' at Rio 2016 Olympics by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 28, 2016 6:46 AM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 28, 2016 6:46 AM CUT A new report by the World Anti-Doping Agency claims that there were “serious failings” in the anti-doping program at the 2016 Rio Olympic Summer Games. The agency’s [report](http://World Anti-Doping Agency report reveals “serious failings” at Rio 2016 "undefined"), published Thursday, found that many athletes targeted for testing “simply could not be found and the mission had to be aborted.” On some days, over 50 percent of planned tests had to be nixed. Out of a total of 11,470 athletes, it said, over a third had no record of any testing in 2016. Other shortcomings included inadequate blood testing in high-risk sports such as weightlifting, data entry errors that resulted in nearly 100 samples not being matched to athletes, and a lack of coordination among the anti-doping department’s management team. The International Olympic Committee has been in the spotlight the wake of the [Russian doping scandal](http://time.com/4421019/russia-olympic-doping-report/ "undefined"), and late revelations of failed drug tests [at London 2012](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/27/olympics-23-athletes-caught-out-london-2012-drug-retests "undefined"). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4548803/doping-olympics-rio-2016-wada-report/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4548803/doping-olympics-rio-2016-wada-report/"},"headline":"World Anti-Doping Agency Report Reveals 'Serious Failings' at Rio 2016 Olympics","datePublished":"2016-10-28T06:46:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T01:29:08.336Z","description":"Many athletes were not tested simply because they could not be located","url":"https://time.com/4548803/doping-olympics-rio-2016-wada-report/","keywords":["Summer Olympics","Rio 2016","2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Sports","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4548803/doping-olympics-rio-2016-wada-report/","name":"World Anti-Doping Agency Report Reveals 'Serious Failings' at Rio 2016 Olympics"}}]}] ```