2023 Saw Significant Uptick in Positive Doping Cases As Testing Numbers Increased Post-COVID ...Middle East

By Braden Keith on SwimSwam

The World Anti-Doping Association has released its 2023 doping violations report, which shows a significant increase in adverse analytical findings compared to the previous two years. Those increases are at an even higher rate than the increase in the number of tests administered.

Year over Year data:

AAFs (mostly positive tests):

Sanctions:

Samples Collected:

The data increase coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, where health protocols resulted in fewer tests being administered, shows that there may have been missed doping in 2020, 2021, and 2022. But Director General Olivier Niggli viewed the increased numbers as a positive sign.

“The year-on-year increase of Anti-Doping Rule Violations, even allowing for the fact that more samples were collected in 2023, is a positive sign that the system is catching more violators,” Niggli noted.

“Improvements in testing and analytical techniques are assisting us in that process while we are also ensuring we can distinguish genuine cheats from those who are victims of contamination, and these figures are another positive step forward for the global clean sport community.

“In addition, research tells us that effective education and awareness programs are helping to prevent doping before it occurs, providing athletes with the tools and the knowledge they need to compete clean. It is very clear that in recent years anti-doping has become more sophisticated, including through non-analytical methods such as intelligence and investigations, and that this multi-pronged approach is having the desired effect on the ground.”

Other Data from the Report

Sports with the most doping positives:

Among aquatic sports, swimming had 23 ADRVs, with most of those coming from sprinters who compete mostly in races 100 meters or less (16). Middle distance swimmers at 200-400 meters recorded 6, and distance swimmers at 800 meters or greater had 1.

Diving had 1, water polo had 1, and artistic swimming had none. Para-swimming also had a total of 4 Anti-Doping Rules Violations.

This is a significant decrease for aquatics as a whole with 34 in the Olympic arm and 5 in the para-swimming arm in 2022. 26 of those 34 were in swimming.

Countries with the most doping positives. (Positive Tests + Investigated Violations):

Russia’s number of positives from non-analytical sources, aka via investigations, is particularly high because 2023 was when the Moscow Laboratory data was finally recovered, with most of those positives coming from 2011-2015.

Russia (7), India (3), and Italy (3) were the only nations with more than 1 ADRV in 2023 in aquatic sports, according to the report.

The United States had 0 ADRVs in 2023 in aquatic sports, though that number will tick up in 2024 when there were at least five.

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