Late in April, the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) published its fourth annual Anti-Doping Rule Violations Report, which stated that there were 1,595 doping rule violations across 112 sports and athletes from 117 nationalities in 2016.
In total, WADA-accredited labs collected 229,514 samples in 2016.
Click here to view the full 60-page report.
Of the nearly-1600 anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs), 1,326 can be credited directly to adverse analytical findings (AKA the presence of a prohibited substance) and the remainder were from investigations and evidence-based intelligence into 248 violations committed by athletes, and 21 by support staff. For comparison, in 2015, there were 1,929 ADRVs; in 2014 there were 1.693; and in 2013 there were 1,953.
Interestingly, a whopping 79 percent of the ADRVs were from male athletes.
As for individual sports, Track and Field produced the highest number of ADRVs with 205, followed by bodybuilding (183), cycling (165), weightlifting (116) and soccer (79). Powerlifting (70), wrestling (64), rugby (56), aquatics (35) and boxing 35) followed.
As a country, Italy had the most athletes produce ADRVs with 147. France followed with 86, then United States with 76, and Australia with 75.
Russia, whose participation in widespread state-sponsored doping led to its restriction at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games, tied India for 6th with 69 ADRVs.
This must mean that athletes and federations are starting to value integrity over prestige and money.
No way the drop is because dopers are getting better at gaming the system.
No way™
I’d be interested to see how the anti doping violations per capita for each country compare. And the violators as a percentage of the registered athletes per sport/country. Wonder if there’d be any surprises.
Probably be an effect from the type of sport that particular countries have more of.
So Southern European countries, with higher numbers of road cyclists, and Caribbean nations, with lots of track sprinters, will do worse than a country like India, where the main sport is cricket.