WADA at twenty: old problems and old thinking?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The decision taken at Lausanne in 1999 to establish WADA represented a new start in anti-doping: a new organization under new leadership with new sources of funding, new headquarters and a new and wider anti-doping remit. The establishment of WADA also represented a potential new start in another way, for it offered an opportunity to develop fresh thinking and new approaches to anti-doping. To what extent has such fresh thinking been evident in WADA policy over the past twenty years? This question is examined via a focus on two key policy issues: WADA’s rationale for anti-doping policy and the reliance of WADA’s anti-doping policy on a strategy based on biological testing. What have been the implications of decisions in these areas for the outcomes of WADA policy, as measured by the number, and the type, of doping offences identified by WADA? It is argued that in many respects WADA’s policies represent a missed opportunity for, far from bringing new thinking or offering a new approach to anti-doping, WADA has for the most part simply reiterated and intensified policies which have a long history of failure and that those policies continue to be largely unsuccessful in controlling drug use in sport.