Doping control adverse results prevalence worldwide for 13 consecutive years

Abstract

The presence of adverse results in doping controls is always bad news for the sport, as it reflects the moral and ethical absence of a clean competition. Its prevalence and evolution is important to know and have criteria on the relevance of this event.

Method

The results of doping controls from 2003 to 2015 at the global level, offered by the World Anti-Doping Agency on its website, have been revised.

Results

The presence of adverse results of the year 2015 as last reference, reached 0.83% in Olympic sports and 2.04% in the non-Olympic ones. It remains a similar level during the last 7 years, tending to decline in the Olympics and increase in the non-Olympics. The groups of predominant substances are, in order, anabolic steroids 50.3%, stimulants 15.4% and maskers 12.5%, being the rest diverse and variable. It should be noted that many treatments with therapeutic authorisation, i.e., beta agonists (3–4%), glucocorticosteroids (6–8%) or central nervous system (3–5%), are shown as adverse results, but are therefore not doping positive and in their case punishable. Similarly, the high number of anabolic positives is the result of fraud, but also the presence of repeated samples in the follow-up study of some athletes.

Conclusion

The data serve as a reference to have a more accurate criterion in reference to this field of sport.