Britain Left With Only One Lab for Dope-testing As Olympics Loom

One of two drug-testing laboratories included in London's bid to stage the 2012 Olympics has been stripped of its international accreditation by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Officials from UK Sport, which oversees drug-testing in the UK, said the move was due to a "change in policy" but it follows complaints that the laboratory in Cambridge, run by a company called HFL, was also testing nutritional supplements and declaring them screened by a Wada-accredited laboratory.

HFL conducted nearly 20% of the country's drugs tests in 2006, costing UK Sport about £250,000. UK Sport's decision not to continue placing at least 1,500 samples annually - the minimum required for Wada accreditation - prompted HFL's loss of status. HFL still offers quality-control screening on nutritional supplements for more than 40 companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, makers of Lucozade. Some Lucozade Sport bottles in the past have carried "tested at a Wada-accredited laboratory" on their labels. One company, fronted by the Olympic gold medalist Darren Campbell and which has used HFL, labels its products as having "gold-standard screening at Wada-accredited laboratory". The former sports minister Richard Caborn has criticized such labeling.

A spokesperson for UK Sport said yesterday: "We can't ever get to a stage where we can kite mark supplements because the risk of contamination is always there. Wada do have concerns about accredited labs testing supplements but HFL was not the only laboratory doing this globally."

UK Sport says its withdrawal of tests from HFL was not due to direct pressure from Wada, whose draft code, expected to be adopted in November, bans its laboratories from "analyzing commercial material or preparations [such as dietary supplements] unless specifically requested by an anti-doping organization as part of a doping case investigation". The loss of HFL leaves King's College in London as the UK's only Wada-accredited lab.

Jon Williams, a sports nutritionist who works with Campbell at Pro Athlete Supplementation, said: "I know there's a bit of a conflict there. But the fact that they are Wada-accredited is the reason we went to them. They offer a useful service."

A spokeswoman for London 2012 said they are confident about the testing capacity at King's College, which is the other site in London's Olympic Games bid book.

David Hall, chief executive of HFL, said his company would continue to screen sports nutrition products. "This strategic shift by UK Sport will allow us to support athletes in other ways, specifically to develop further partnerships within the nutritional supplement sector," he said.