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UCLA lab let Hardy’s test sit despite expedited request

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BEIJING -- This was the natural question when USA Swimming’s Mark Schubert told us here this week about the time lag in getting Jessica Hardy’s drug test back, despite an expedited request:

What happened?

Got up here this morning, checked the BlackBerry (again) and there was this email below from the folks at the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in answer to my request. Hardy, of Long Beach, was tested after the 100-meter freestyle on July 4 and learned of the positive drug test for the banned substance clenbuterol on July 21 even though USA Swimming paid for faster results.

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‘While USADA is unable to guarantee the laboratory’s performance given that science cannot be rushed, it does endeavor to facilitate testing and prompt reporting of results based on the schedule of competitions provided, and the laboratory uses best efforts to comply with advance requests by USADA for expedited testing. Both USADA and USA Swimming anticipated that the requested expedited reporting could be fulfilled by the [UCLA] laboratory, understanding that it requires a delicate balance of good thorough science with the need to have results quickly to name teams. ‘While under the circumstances it is regrettable that the laboratory was unable to meet the expedited time frame requested by USADA for every sample submitted, the vast majority of the samples from all Olympic Trials were analyzed within the schedule requested.’

What the email statement didn’t say was that the UCLA lab incorrectly logged the sample, failing to mark it expedited, as requested, and the results later sat, unnoticed, in USADA’s offices the weekend before the 21st, Ron Judd of the Seattle Times reported. The lab’s director, Dr. Anthony Butch, acknowledged that in an interview. ‘We dropped the ball, and we missed it,’ Butch told the Seattle Times. ‘We clearly made the mistake.’

And this helped cost Tara Kirk and Lara Jackson spots in the Olympics because of the tight deadlines.

Mistake? In this unfortunate matter, that word should be plural.

-- Lisa Dillman

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