ABSTRACT
This contribution analyses the evidentiary approach of the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) from the perspective of ‘doping relevance’, as opposed to the risk for athletes to test positive for futile mistakes unrelated to sport or circumstances entirely outside their control. After clarifying the concept of ‘doping relevance’ and setting out the fundamentals of the WADC’s evidentiary framework, the contribution contrasts violations based on the traditional ‘adverse analytical finding’ with those based on longitudinal profiling through the ‘Athlete Biological Passport’. With the increasing sophistication of detection tools, the historical evidentiary assumptions underlying the WADC may no longer yield satisfactory results for warranting doping relevance, which makes certain adaptations to the system necessary. While some of those adaptations are already in place, the contribution concludes with suggestions to further strengthen the doping relevance of analytical findings.
