Sports Doping

The use by an athlete of a prohibited performance-enhancing substance or method to gain a competitive advantage, defined and regulated internationally by the World Anti-Doping Agency's World Anti-Doping Code, which international sports federations and national anti-doping organizations have adopted and which is enforced primarily through an athlete's suspension or disqualification from competition rather than criminal prosecution. A growing number of countries, including Italy, France and Germany, have separately criminalized doping or the trafficking of doping substances under national law, and some have gone further and specifically criminalized a state-run doping program, most notably following the documented Russian doping scandal centered on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, in which whistleblower testimony and the World Anti-Doping Agency's own McLaren Report described a systematic, state-organized doping and cover-up scheme affecting numerous Russian athletes. The World Anti-Doping Agency maintains a published Prohibited List, updated annually, naming the specific substances and methods banned in and out of competition.