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Background: There has been a lack of consideration of the specific needs of para-athletes and athlete-support personnel (ASP) when designing anti-doping and clean-sport education. To this, we developed recommendations for anti-doping and clean-sport education addressing the specific needs of these groups. Methods: The Delphi method was used. Stakeholders with relevant expertise were invited to be panel members. In Round 1, the expert panel suggested novel elements for anti-doping and clean-sport education with para-athletes and ASP. These suggestions were integrated within a survey assessing the importance of 28 potential elements. In Round 2, the expert panel completed this survey. In Round 3, panel members ranked the relative importance of each topic area rated highest in Round 2. Based on these rankings, a draft set of recommendations was created. In Round 4, panel members rated the degree to which they accepted these recommendations and the feasibility of their delivery. Results: The results of Round 2 and Round 3 were used to create education recommendations for para-athletes and ASP. In Round 4, most panel members fully accepted the para-athlete and ASP recommendations. Conclusions: Adoption and implementation of the recommendations created should lead to greater engagement, enhanced learning, and more effective education for para-athletes and ASP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India notified the National Anti-Doping Act (the Act) on 12 August 2022. Through this legislation, India appears to reiterate its commitment to compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code (the WADA Code). However, the reality of doping in Indian sports is far from ideal. India ranks second globally in terms of Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs). The question then is, what flaws existed in the pre-Act anti-doping policies? Further, how far has the developing country narrative of India impacted these policies? Finally, to what extent does the Act address the existing gaps in India's anti-doping policy? The article addresses these questions to evaluate the necessity of the Act. The article reviews the existing literature on India's anti-doping policy. The review includes government status reports, the National Anti-Doping Agency's (NADA's) decisions and WADA's ADRVs report. These documents establish that the pre-Act anti-doping policy of India had failed to stem the incidents of doping within Indian sports. The Act is a flawed piece of legislation. Consequently, India's anti-doping policy is unlikely to be impacted, though further quantitative research in the future is needed to evaluate the Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent decades have seen increased efforts internationally to prevent the use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) and other image and performance-enhancing drugs (IPEDs) in gyms and fitness environments. Yet, very little is known about effective prevention strategies. This study aimed to identify key risk factors for AAS use and assess the relevance of these risk factors as targets of intervention. Seventy four (n = 74) IPED experts participated in the Anabolic Steroid Prevention Survey (response rate: 62.4%). A total of 18 psychosocial and two behavioral risk factors identified in a literature review were rated by participants along two dimensions: importance and preventability. The results show that most IPED experts (91%) believe that preventing AAS use in gyms is important to public health, and that AAS use can be prevented to a certain degree (91%), but not eliminated altogether (85%). Based on participants' assessment, six risk factors were categorised as very promising (e.g. the descriptive norm and poor knowledge on AAS alternatives), 10 as promising (e.g. body dissatisfaction and drive for muscularity), and four as unpromising but worthy of consideration (e.g. AAS-using peers and perceived benefits of AAS use). To effectively prevent AAS use in gyms, interventions should attempt to reduce these risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was established, underfunding of the global fight against doping has been a perennial issue. So when WADA's ''independent'' committee's report about the lack of effectiveness of anti-doping testing was published, it was no surprise to read the committee's complaint that the national anti-doping organisations' (NADO) operations were held back by ''Unwillingness of stakeholders to provide sufficient funding of NADOs''. In this paper, we explore how the funding of the world anti-doping campaign and the testing efficacy has developed. Our aim was to examine if the data made available by the antidoping institutions support the idea that: 1) increased funding of anti-doping leads to better anti-doping defined as improved detection rates, and 2) if that was not the case how the antidoping movements request for more funding can be otherwise explained and defended. We conclude that the available data do not indicate that increased funding leads to better antidoping if detection rate is used as yardstick. But this does not mean that increased funding is money wasted. More money has generally led to more tests, and despite the meagre outcome in the form of more adverse analytical findings the procedure is still significant. It keeps laboratories busy and thus contributes to job creation. The same is true for the NADOs. It does not seem to make any practical difference what they do, but we find that the number of employees in this field is growing. So anti-doping contributes positively to the gross domestic product in countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-doping regulations are intended, at least in part, to promote the health of athletes. While most anti-doping efforts target elite and professional competitors, there have been recent moves by sport governing bodies to expand anti-doping testing to include amateur athletes. Drawing on previous critiques of anti-doping policies and illustrating cases, this article outlines five of the challenges to health promotion of applying the current detect and ban model to the amateur level of sport. I argue that the current approach is not effective and, in some ways, may undermine the goal of health promotion at the amateur level. In order to address these challenges, I propose alternative, health-centred strategies that focus on athlete empowerment and choice through critical awareness of a variety of substances, associated risks and rewards, and the role of expertise in decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary aims to explore a possible cause-effect relationship between two pervasive phenomena: needle phobia, an irrationally high fear of needles, syringes and injections and doping phobia, a visceral rejection and condemnation of performance-enhancing techniques and substances (PETS) and the athletes that use them. It is argued that the rise of anti-dopism (the ideology underpinning anti-doping) in the 1960s paralleled a transition from oral ingestion to injection as the preferred way of administering performance-enhancing substances. In popular culture and media representations, PETS have become ever more closely associated with injections, especially after the 1998 Tour de France. Given how widespread the phenomenon of needle phobia is among both the general population and the athletes themselves, this paper hypothesises that the negative feelings surrounding injections may have been (unconsciously) displaced to PETS usage and users. This may help explain why antidopism has achieved uncontested hegemony, despite its inconsistencies and essentially irrational nature. Nonetheless, further research is needed in order to substantiate this possible cause-effect relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]