Do Antidoping Interventions Work?

Abstract

A multitude of interventions have been designed to tackle doping in sport. Despite significant advances in understanding the role of motivation, the environment, policies and education in addressing doping, there is a lack of nuanced knowledge concerning the design and implementation of these interventions. The present study adopted an intervention mapping evaluation perspective, critically evaluating a selection of 12 antidoping programs across three sports in Austria, Russia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, using a mixed-methods, sequential, explanatory design. Findings confirm that the antidoping intervention landscape is diverse and complicated, incorporating multiple strands, sites, ambitions and stakeholders. It also suggests that the drive for policy compliance led by WADA has promoted considerable isomorphism across diverse cultural and economic communities and sports. Antidoping educational interventions appear to have been informed more by the moral imperatives for clean and fair sport rather than sound theoretical bases. While the theoretical basis on which most interventions were based can operate across culturally and economically divergent contexts, this is undermined by differences in their interpretation and the context of their implementation. Several lacunae in the design and implementation of antidoping interventions are also identified and discussed.