The fight against doping
WADA, AFLD, the prohibited list, TUEs and how a test unfolds: how the fight against doping works.
- 18 cards
- 4 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- The steps
- Scenarios
- Understand
A few cards from the deck
WADA: what is it?
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The World Anti-Doping Agency, created in 1999, which writes the World Anti-Doping Code and the prohibited list.
It harmonises the rules across all sports and countries.
The doping control: which step comes after "Notifying the athlete"?
- Reporting to the control station
- Supervised sample collection
- Splitting into sealed A and B bottles
- Laboratory analysis of bottle A
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Reporting to the control station
Bottle B protects the athlete: a positive result can be checked.
AFLD: what is it?
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The French anti-doping agency, an independent public authority that organises testing and imposes sanctions in France.
It applies the World Code under French law. Since 1 January 2022 the analyses are no longer done by the agency but by the French anti-doping laboratory, part of Université Paris-Saclay: the World Code requires the laboratory to be separate from the authority that tests.
An asthmatic athlete must take a banned medicine. What should she do?
- Take it and tell after the test
- Take it on a plain prescription
- Apply for a TUE before taking it
- Note it on the doping control form
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Apply for a TUE before taking it
Neither a prescription nor a note on the doping control form is enough: without a TUE, a positive result is still a violation.
Prohibited list: what is it?
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The annual list of substances and methods banned in and out of competition.
WADA publishes it every year, in force from 1 January. A substance or method may be listed if it meets two of three criteria: performance enhancement, health risk, violation of the spirit of sport; some are banned in competition only.
Why is an athlete responsible for what is found in his sample, even without intent?
- Anti-doping laboratories never make mistakes
- Each federation freely chooses this rule
- The coach answers for the sample in their place
- The World Code sets strict liability
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The World Code sets strict liability
The violation rests on the substance's presence alone. Lack of intent or fault can reduce, or even remove, the ban (4 years as a baseline when doping is intentional, 2 years otherwise), but does not erase the violation.