MONTREAL (AP) - Just weeks before the Olympic Games open in Rio de Janeiro, the city's accredited anti-doping laboratory has been stopped from conducting tests.
The World Anti-Doping Agency said Friday it has suspended the lab's accreditation due to "non-conformity with the International Standard for Laboratories."
No details of the laboratory's failings were specified.
"The suspension, which took effect on (Wednesday) when the Rio Laboratory was notified, prohibits the laboratory from carrying out all anti-doping analyses on urine and blood samples," WADA said in a statement.
Samples collected from athletes in Brazil during the interim ban will be transported to a lab in other country for testing, the agency said.
"This will ensure that there are no gaps in the anti-doping sample analysis procedures; and that, the integrity of the samples is fully maintained," WADA's incoming director general Olivier Niggli said in the statement.
Niggli added that the agency "will work closely with the Rio Laboratory to resolve the identified issue."
The suspension is an embarrassment to Brazil and Rio so close to the Aug. 5-21 Summer Games.
Rio risks being without a hometown lab during the Olympics two years after a testing operation in the city was shut down ahead of the 2014 World Cup.
Then, FIFA had to organize flying samples taken from soccer players to be tested at an accredited lab in Lausanne, Switzerland. No blood samples missed the deadline of being tested within 36 hours of being given by an athlete.