Japanese sports officials intend to conduct random out-of-competition drug tests at the annual National Sports Festival in their stepped-up efforts to fight doping, sources familiar with the move said Monday.
The latest plan is designed to put Japan's anti-doping measures in line with international standards by randomly selecting locations for unannounced drug tests beginning with this year's event in Hyogo Prefecture opening on Sept. 30.
Currently, the timing of out-of-competition testing at the National Sports Festival is announced beforehand and tests are limited to designated training sites.
According to the Japan Sports Association, no positive results have been reported in the past at the festival, a large-scale multi-sport event where prefectures compete against each another.
The association plans to boost the number of out-of-competition tests to 100 and in-competition tests to 50 at this year's event from a total of less than 100 conducted at last year's festival.