ABSTRACT
During the period since WADA was formed there has been a more than doubling of the number of annual global tests (now just over 300,000 in 2016), which has dramatically raised the extent of surveillance of athletes. Yet there is a clear gap between policy outcomes and the reality of doping. Consistently fewer than two per cent of athletes who are tested are caught using drugs to cheat. We compare this to the evidence found elsewhere of significantly higher prevalence of doping in a range of countries and sports and show that the system is not working. Situations of either low levels of testing or failure to fully investigate doping environments exacerbate the deficit between testing results and doping practices. We examine the various reasons why the attempt to force all athletes, in all sports and in all countries, to behave according to the ‘clean sport’ mantra has failed so badly, and focus on the problems inherent in the vision of harmonisation. These issues persist despite increasing policy efforts, international government support and financial resources. Anti-doping is an ambitious and idealistic policy, which has thus far not succeeded in creating a level playing field.
