[Source: Reuters]

Athletes from Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Portugal will face more stringent out-of-competition (OOC) testing to be eligible for the Paris Olympics as their national testing programmes are not sufficient, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Monday.

The decision comes after the World Athletics Council approved the recommendations from the AIU board to impose “tougher testing requirements on those federations” before the Olympics begin on July 26.

The stringent conditions include athletes having undergone at least three no-notice out-of-competition tests before July 4 while each of those tests should have been conducted at least three weeks apart.