The History of the Anti-Doping Movement

The modern doping-control system did not appear all at once. It was shaped by tragedies on the race courses, loud scandals at the Olympics and decades of disputes among federations, governments and scientists. The editorial team tells how the anti-doping movement traveled the path from the first isolated tests to the global WADA system.

Before control appeared

Stimulants were used in sport as early as the end of the 19th century. Cyclists and long-distance runners consumed mixtures with caffeine, alcohol, cocaine and strychnine. A textbook example is the marathon of the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, where the winner Thomas Hicks was given strychnine with brandy during the race.

At the time this was not considered a violation: there simply were no rules about “doping,” and the attitude toward stimulants was far more lenient. The sporting ethics of that time were more concerned with the amateur status of the athletes than with the substances they used.

In the interwar period and after the Second World War the situation worsened. Amphetamines, widely used by the military, made their way into sport, and in the 1950s synthetic anabolic steroids appeared.

Sports historians note that until the 1960s the problem of doping was discussed mainly by doctors and journalists, while sports organizations had neither the tools nor the desire to intervene (Dimeo, 2007).

The 1960s: tragedies and the first rules

The year 1960 is considered a turning point: at the Olympic Games in Rome, during the team race, the Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen died. At the time his death was linked to the use of stimulants; later historians cast doubt on this version, pointing to heatstroke. Nevertheless, it was this case that became the impetus for discussion.

In 1967 the British cyclist Tom Simpson died at the Tour de France. The autopsy showed the presence of amphetamine, and the combination of stimulants, heat and exhaustion proved fatal. The broadcast of this tragedy finally convinced sports officials that inaction was impossible.

That same year the International Olympic Committee created a Medical Commission and approved a list of banned substances. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Grenoble and Mexico City, systematic testing was carried out for the first time.

The first Olympian disqualified for doping was the Swedish pentathlete Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall — because of the alcohol he drank before shooting. This episode showed that the rules apply even to “ordinary” substances.

The 1970s–1990s: the fight against steroids

The main problem of the 1970s was anabolic steroids. A reliable method of detecting them in urine was developed at the beginning of the decade, and the IOC banned this group of substances. Mass testing for steroids was carried out for the first time at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

However, the testing systems remained limited: control was carried out mainly at competitions, and athletes learned to stop use in advance. Documents released after the unification of Germany attested to the existence of a state doping program in the GDR (Franke, Berendonk, 1997).

In 1988 in Seoul the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson won the 100 meters with a world record, but stanozolol was found in his sample. The scandal had an enormous resonance and showed the whole world the scale of the problem.

At the end of the 1990s the “Festina affair” erupted at the 1998 Tour de France: a large quantity of banned drugs, in particular erythropoietin, was found in the team’s car. It became clear that the federations were incapable of controlling the situation on their own.

1999: the creation of WADA

In February 1999 the IOC convened the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Lausanne. Its result was the decision to create an independent organization, and already in November 1999 the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was founded. It is financed equally by the Olympic movement and governments.

In 2003 in Copenhagen the World Anti-Doping Code was adopted, which came into force in 2004. It for the first time unified the rules, the banned list, testing procedures and sanctions for all sports and countries.

Since governments cannot sign the Code as a private document, in 2005 UNESCO adopted the International Convention against Doping in Sport. Ukraine is also a party to it, and the national anti-doping agency operates by the rules of the Code.

The Code has been revised several times — the current edition came into force in 2021. Every year WADA updates the Prohibited List, which includes substances and methods banned permanently or only during competition.

Modern tools and challenges

One of the most important innovations was the athlete biological passport — a system that analyzes not the presence of a substance but changes in individual indicators over time. The hematological module was introduced from 2009 on the basis of WADA guidelines, and later a steroid module appeared (Sottas et al., 2011).

The Code allows samples to be stored for ten years and retested with new methods. Large-scale checks of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Games led to dozens of disqualifications and the redistribution of medals.

The greatest test for the system was the case of the state doping scheme in Russia, exposed by the investigations of 2015–2016, in particular the McLaren report. It showed that manipulation is possible even inside an accredited laboratory.

Among modern challenges are new substances (SARMs, peptides, metabolic modulators), contaminated dietary supplements, questions of athletes’ privacy and the balance between the strictness of sanctions and the principle of strict liability.

For amateur athletes it is important to understand: the WADA rules apply to everyone who competes under the auspices of federations that have signed the Code — regardless of level.

Editorial conclusions

The anti-doping movement arose as a reaction to the tragedies of the 1960s and developed from spot tests into a complex international system with a single Code.

Every major scandal — from Ben Johnson to the Festina affair and the Russian scheme — became an impetus for tightening the rules and for new control methods.

The system is not perfect, but it protects both fair competition and the health of athletes, for whom doping can have serious consequences.

The editorial team also recommends reading our materials about Olympic doping scandals, about sports pharmacology in Soviet sport and about the history of the discovery of testosterone.

References

1. World Anti-Doping Agency. World Anti-Doping Code 2021. Montreal: WADA; 2021.
2. World Anti-Doping Agency. The Prohibited List. Montreal: WADA; оновлюється щорічно.
3. UNESCO. International Convention against Doping in Sport. Paris: UNESCO; 2005.
4. Müller RK. History of doping and doping control. Handb Exp Pharmacol. 2010;(195):1–23.
5. Dimeo P. A History of Drug Use in Sport 1876–1976: Beyond Good and Evil. London: Routledge; 2007.
6. Franke WW, Berendonk B. Hormonal doping and androgenization of athletes: a secret program of the German Democratic Republic government. Clin Chem. 1997;43(7):1262–1279.
7. Sottas PE, Robinson N, Rabin O, Saugy M. The athlete biological passport. Clin Chem. 2011;57(7):969–976.
8. McLaren RH. WADA Investigation of Sochi Allegations: Independent Person Report. Montreal: WADA; 2016.