Frequency and type of adverse analytical findings in athletics: Differences among disciplines.
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2021
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Drug Testing and Analysis
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Abstract
Athletics is a highly diverse sport that contains a set of disciplines grouped into jumps,
throws, races of varying distances, and combined events. From a physiological standpoint,
the physical capabilities linked to success are quite different among
disciplines, with varying involvements of muscle strength, muscle power, and
endurance. Thus, the use of banned substances in athletics might be dictated by physical
dimensions of each discipline. Thus, the aim of this investigation was to
analyse the number and distribution of adverse analytical findings per drug class in
athletic disciplines. The data included in this investigation were gathered from the
Anti-Doping Testing Figure Report made available by the World Anti-Doping Agency
(from 2016 to 2018). Interestingly, there were no differences in the frequency of
adverse findings (overall, 0.95%, range from 0.77 to 1.70%) among disciplines
despite long distance runners having the highest number of samples analysed per year
( 9812 samples/year). Sprinters and throwers presented abnormally high
proportions of adverse analytical findings within the group of anabolic agents
(p < 0.01); middle- and long-distance runners presented atypically high proportions of
findings related to peptide hormones and growth factors (p < 0.01); racewalkers presented
atypically high proportions of banned diuretics and masking agents (p = 0.05).
These results suggest that the proportion of athletes that are using banned substances
is similar among the different disciplines of athletics. However, there are substantial
differences in the class of drugs more commonly used in each discipline. This information
can be used to effectively enhance anti-doping testing protocols in athletics.
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Keywords
Anti-doping, Athletic disciplines, Banned drugs, Elite athlete, Sport performance