Performance Profiling—Perspectives for Anti-doping and beyond

Abstract

Performance profiling is a new area of research that could potentially open new frontiers in the fight against doping. Even beyond exposing unnatural and pharmacology aided performances, there are other potential applications and benefits of performance modeling for the protection of the integrity of sports. The backbone of performance modeling in anti-doping is the individual tracking of performance through competition results or other metrics of sporting achievements. Since performance improvement is the primary goal of doping, it is expected that doping will affect competition results. Thus, individual tracking of performance could potentially expose suspicious cases that deserve more scrutiny from anti-doping officials and help to adjust targeted testing. On the other hand changes in performance levels could also be used to assess the efficiency of new anti-doping strategies. Another application of performance analysis is to develop unified classifications of athletes according to their level of performance. This classification has numerous practical meanings, but from anti-doping perspective it provides an opportunity to set exact criteria for athletes belonging to national and international testing pools and thus estimate the number of tests needed in different countries based on the number of athletes at ascertain performance level. At the moment, in the absence of unified and comprehensive criteria for national and international testing pools, there are no definitive regulations regarding exact doping test numbers needed. Thus, it creates inequality between nations and affects the credibility of the anti-doping system worldwide. Such classification would allow a more efficient use of anti-doping resources. Since doping is not the only threat to the integrity of sports, performance modeling can also help to reveal cases of other misbehavior in sports, like match fixing or result manipulation. In summary, performance modeling and its application to various fields is a new method to improve the efficiency of systems to safeguard the integrity of sports at different levels.

Association Between Implementation of the Athlete Biological Passport and Female Elite Runners’ Performance

“…Performance monitoring and profiling were proposed as a potential tool for the measurement of anti-doping effectiveness. 12,13 (Ahead of Print)…”

“…11 As performance improvement is the primary goal of doping, it was proposed that changes in performance levels could be used for assessment of new anti-doping strategies efficiency. 12,13 Considering this framework, the goal of the present investigation was to assess the athletic performances before and after the implementation of an ABP program in a country with a known high prevalence of doping. 4 We chose sporting disciplines that have been historically affected by doping and where the country was internationally dominant for decades.…”

Performance profiling as an intelligence‐led approach to antidoping in sports

“…However, a key concern with the use of athlete sporting performance data in this context is distinguishing between a physiological increase in performance caused by factors including training and tapering, maturation, seasonal and random variation, from an "unphysiological" improvement caused by doping. 11 Analysis of "big data" contained within performance repositories has the potential to increase our understanding of athlete performance and how it evolves over an athlete's career 12 in order to establish normal or expected rates of progression. Thus, a retrospective trawl of existing data repositories might be used to establish typical performance trends within a large cohort of athletes, and in turn identify career progression that falls outside these normal or expected rates, which may be indicative of doping.…”

Annual banned‐substance review: Analytical approaches in human sports drug testing

“…The complexity is further enhanced by individuals feigning an accidental uptake of a prohibited substance with the intention of mitigating potential sanctions . Consequently, additional information of an analytical/chemical nature as well as from complementary sources such as performance profiles have received growing attention, and especially the concept of an athlete performance passport has been the subject of intense debate . Here (potential) benefits (eg, the possibility of identifying atypical changes in the athlete's performance triggering target testing) as well as yet unresolved and unaddressed questions (eg, accuracy and validity of collected performance data, environmental factors) have been discussed …”

“…25,26 Consequently, additional information of an analytical/chemical nature as well as from complementary sources such as performance profiles have received growing attention, and especially the concept of an athlete performance passport has been the subject of intense debate. 27 Here (potential) benefits (eg, the possibility of identifying atypical changes in the athlete's performance triggering target testing) as well as yet unresolved and unaddressed questions (eg, accuracy and validity of collected performance data, environmental factors) have been discussed. [28][29][30][31][32] In continuation of previous editions, 33 advances in and contributions to analytical means for human sports drug testing published over the past 12 months are evaluated in this annual banned-substance review, with a focus on substances and methods of doping as detailed in the WADA Prohibited List of 2018.…”