World Aquatics has posted the testing data for the first quarter of 2026, and they collected 1,102 samples from 527 athletes of 68 nationalities in collaboration with the International Testing Agency (ITA).
These test from World Aquatics are only a portion of the tests conducted on elite athletes with many global bodies holding overlapping testing authorities. You can see the graphic from World Aquatics with the full data broken down here.
Europe had the highest concentration of Q1 samples with 60.6% of the total tests coming out of the continent. This comes after the World Anti-Doping Agency recently announced that 302 sanctions had been imposed on 291 Russian athletes based on 2019 samples, seven of which were aquatics participants.
The 1,102 samples in the first quarter of 2026 was almost double the 684 samples collected in quarter four of 2025. The other three quarters of 2025 saw more samples collected with the first quarter seeing 1,413 samples.
Total Samples Collected Over Last Five Quarters
| 2025 | 2026 | |
| Q1 | 1,413 | 1,102 |
| Q2 | 1,845 | |
| Q3 | 1,403 | |
| Q4 | 684 |
World Aquatics also released the number of Therapeutic Use Exemption Applications received during Q1. These exemptions would allow athletes to use certain substances on the banned list with guidance from medical professions. Not every medication on the list is eligible for a TUE, but the ones that are can help treat basic illnesses, like a cold, or chronic conditions like asthma.
In Q1 of 2026, there were 13 TUE applications, 2 of which were either unneeded or withdrawn and 10 were approved/recognized. The remaining one is still pending. You can read more about TUE exemptions here on the ITA website.
