Thirteen years of the fight against doping in figures

Abstract

Every year, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) publishes the main statistics reported by the accredited laboratories, which provide very valuable information for assessing changes in the patterns of doping in sports over time. Using the information provided since 2003 as the basis for the analysis, the evolution of doping/anti-doping figures over the last decade can be examined in reasonable detail, at least in reference to samples analyzed and categories of substances more commonly found in athletes' samples. This brief analysis of the WADA statistical reports leads us to the following outcomes: the increase in anti-doping pressure from 2003 to 2015, as evidenced by increased numbers of samples analyzed and banned substances, has not directly produced a higher frequency of adverse/atypical findings. Although this could be interpreted as steady state in the capacity to detect doping through this whole period, it also resulted in a significant increase in the absolute number of samples catalogued as doping (from 2247 in 2003 to 5912 in 2015). Anabolic agents have been the most common doping substances detected in all statistics reports while the remaining groups of substances are much less frequently found in doping control samples. Given that one might have expected the enhancement of the anti-doping programme led by WADA over this last decade to have increased the percentage of adverse/atypical findings, the fact that it did not might indicate the need to take another step in sampling strategies, such as 'more intelligent testing' based on the differences in the prevalence of doping substances among sports. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Doping prevalence in competitive sport: Evidence synthesis with “best practice” recommendations and reporting guidelines from the WADA Working Group on Doping Prevalence

“…Studies placed in SRP employed four different methods for determining prevalence, which were Direct Survey (DS) , Random Response Technique (RT) [102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110], Qualitative Interviews (QI) [111], and Network Scale Up (NS) [55]. Studies placed in SAP employed four different methods for determining prevalence, which were Testing Figures (TF) [112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121], Blood Profile (BP) [122][123][124], Anti-Doping Rule Violations (AD) [125][126][127], and Hair Sample (HS) [79]. One study [79] was found to use a method assigned to SRP and to SAP, thus it was included in both with its two assessment scores included independently in Electronic Supplementary Material Appendix S4.…”

Development of a multi‐functional concurrent assay using weak cation‐exchange solid‐phase extraction (WCX‐SPE) and reconstitution with a diluted sample aliquot for anti‐doping analysis

“…The World Anti‐Doping Agency (WADA) annually publishes a list in which prohibited drugs are organized into twelve classes and the three forbidden methods of chemical and physical manipulation, gene doping, and the manipulation of blood and blood components . The number of drugs deemed as “prohibited” has dramatically increased over the decades, which has led to increased demands for stricter anti‐doping policies and control methods . In light of these demands for more control, class‐dependent or multi‐class approaches for analysis have evolved over the years.…”

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

“…Despite the substantial body of evidence concerning adverse effects of pseudo‐endogenous and synthetic anabolic‐androgenic steroid (AAS) misuse at, for example, the cardiovascular, renal, and hepatic levels, statistics regarding AAFs continue to list AAS as the most frequent reason of drug‐related anti‐doping rule violations (ADRVs) . This highlights the importance of anti‐doping research in this field.…”

“…Over the last 13 years, the number of doping controls has increased resulting in growing numbers of adverse analytical findings (AAFs). Remarkably, however, the percentage of atypical findings and AAFs has remained within the range of 1–2% . Despite positive developments enabling enhanced, large‐scale testing in general (ie, increased overall test numbers, decreased costs/sample, decreased administrative expenditures, etc.…”