Tuesday 01 February 2022

Gold standard testing for Great Britain’s Olympians: Randox provides Team GB’s COVID-19 testing for Beijing Winter Olympic Games

As part of the two-year partnership between Randox and The British Olympic Association,  the Team GB Olympians competing in the Olympic Winter Games 2022 have used Randox COVID-19 tests to ensure they touch down in Beijing free of COVID and have the best possibility opportunity to compete without the fear of being ruled out on health grounds.

The ‘stop the virus’ logistics drive mirrors a similar and highly successful regime which ensured that Team GB landed in Japan for the 2020 Olympic Games COVID-free, and that no athlete was forced to withdraw in Tokyo because of infection or close contact with someone who had tested positive.

Despite fears that the virus could impact Team GB’s Olympic hopes, the rigorous testing programme put in place helped UK sporting stars to rack up 54 medals – their best-ever performance at an overseas Games bar the 67 medals won in Rio in 2016.

To provide its gold-standard PCR testing services, Randox created a bespoke dashboard for Team GB to register its samples, which will be taken by the Team GB Clinical Team and then transported to the company’s laboratories which are located in Manchester, Greater London and Northern Ireland.

Randox is testing a delegation of 200 Olympians, coaches and support staff in order to meet China’s testing requirements and thereby minimising possible transmission of the virus in Beijing. Randox is providing each member of Team GB with four rounds of pre-departure tests and can offer rapid same-day testing on the day of flying as an extra precaution.

At the time of the announcement of the partnership between Randox and the British Olympic Association, in June 2021, Randox Managing Director, Dr Peter FitzGerald, said:

“We are delighted to be supporting Team GB by helping them get safely to the starting line in Tokyo with our premium Covid-19 testing services, the provision of which has been a major focus of ours since the outbreak of the pandemic. Over the last year, we have been investing significantly in our customer service and testing capacity, which means Randox can now process over 500,000 tests per day, making it the largest laboratory in Europe, and to date has processed over 13 (now 23) million tests. For this reason, our Olympians and anyone else who needs to travel internationally can rest assured that they will receive timely results.”

British Olympic Association CEO, Andy Anson, said:

“This is a fantastic and vital partnership for Team GB ahead of Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022. We have committed to our hosts in Japan and the IOC to ensure that our delegation is fully vaccinated and are also ensuring we have enhanced Covid testing in place. Randox’s pedigree in this area gives us great confidence that we are providing athletes with the best possible medical support around Covid testing and that they get to the start line safely ready to compete successfully for the biggest moment of their sporting careers.”

Randox, with almost 40 years of international diagnostics experience, has been at the forefront of COVID-19 testing since the outset of the pandemic. With proven testing capability and well-established logistics and customer support services, Randox are strongly placed to allow international travellers to travel with confidence.

For further information on Covid testing services please contact the Randox Covid Customer Support team on 028 9434 3005.

For press enquiries please contact Amy Millar in the Randox PR team: randoxpr@randox.com 

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