The World Anti-Doping Agency has provisionally suspended the Paris laboratory ©WADA

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has provisionally suspended the accreditation of the Paris laboratory.

A ban has been placed on the facility in the French capital, known as the French Laboratoire National De Dépistage du Dopage de Châtenay-Malabry (LNDD).

This prohibits the LNDD from carrying out any anti-doping activities, including all analyses of urine and blood samples.

It comes after Paris was awarded the rights to the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games at the International Olympic Committee Session in Lima on September 13.

"This provisional suspension was imposed due to analytical issues identified by WADA," the organisation said in a statement, without elaborating.

The suspension will remain in place pending disciplinary proceedings, carried out by an independent Disciplinary Committee.

This will make a recommendation to the chair of the WADA Executive Committee regarding the status of the laboratory’s accreditation.

According to reports, the National Anti-Doping Organisation of France secretary general Mathieu Teoran said the suspension was linked to the contamination of a "sampling robot".

"Appropriate corrective action was immediately taken and all potentially affected samples underwent reanalysis," Teoran said, according to the BBC.

The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory is where the urine test for EPO, which Lance Armstrong admitted to using, was developed ©Getty Images
The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory is where the urine test for EPO, which Lance Armstrong admitted to using, was developed ©Getty Images

The French laboratory is where the urine test for erythropoetin (EPO) was developed by Jacques de Ceaurriz and Francoise Lasne.

In 2005, the French sports daily L'Equipe alleged that seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong used EPO during the 1999 race. 

De Ceaurriz said the lab could not confirm if the positive samples cited in the paper were from Armstrong. 

But he said the EPO test was absolutely reliable, even for analysing old samples.

Armstrong repeatedly denied the allegations before admitting to doping and being stripped of his seven Tour de France victories.

Paris was awarded the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics at the same time American city Los Angeles was given the 2028 Games.

The laboratory in the Californian city was also "partially suspended" on June 20 by WADA, for a period of three months.

This came as a result of "WADA's quality assessment procedures that identified non-conformities with best practice".

Other laboratories based in Portuguese capital Lisbon, Bogota in Colombia and Mexico City are also currently serving suspensions by WADA.