Doping: An Overview
INTRODUCTION
Doping threatens to undermine the fairness ethos that underpins sport. As a result, governments and international organizations have developed a framework for limiting, discouraging, and sanctioning doping in sports. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) seeks to promote drug-free sports by introducing and enforcing standardized regulations in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code, 2021 (The Code). In order for the Code to be implemented, national governments must collaborate to approve its provisions in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. WADA has admitted that ensuring signatories' compliance with the Code, as well as "all countries following the same set of standards and implementing compliant anti-doping programs," is a "core pillar" of its mandate.
According to WADA, uniform compliance by all signatories is critical for the anti-doping system because "harmonization implies that athletes know what to expect from the anti-doping system regardless of where they are from or where they participate." Despite the fact that the Code has been ratified by the vast majority of national governments and international sports federations, each country has had its own anti-doping experience. Until now, the majority of research on the efficacy of anti-doping policy implementation has concentrated on wealthy nations such as the United Kingdom. Scholars, on the other hand, have argued that the current framework unfairly disadvantages athletes from developing countries; as a result, any comprehensive discussion on the effectiveness of anti-doping system harmonization should consider the Code's implementation in such countries. Little research has been conducted on the effects of the Code's adoption in developing and emerging countries.
THE HISTORY OF DOPING
It is critical to understand what doping is from the start. Doping is the practice of giving drugs to a human or an animal in order to improve their performance during a competition. The term "doping" appeared in an English dictionary for the first time in 1889. Originally, it referred to a combination of drugs that included opium and were given to horses to "dope" them.
Dope was a spirit made from leftover grapes that Zulus used as a "stimulant" during battles and religious rituals. Later on, the term "dope" came to refer to a variety of energizing alcoholic beverages. The phrase was first used in English Turf Sport around 1900 to refer to racehorse doping. The first instances of doping in sport can be traced back to the Ancient Olympics, where athletes are said to have used figs to improve their performance. Many athletes began experimenting with medication combinations to increase power and combat fatigue when modern pharmacology was developed in the nineteenth century. Doping is defined as a chemical that increases your energy level and thus improves your athletic performance.
WORLD ANTI-DOPING AGENCY (WADA)
WADA was established on November 10, 1998, following a major doping scandal that rocked the cycling community. WADA's primary goals are to protect athletes, advance ethical competition ideals, and preserve international sports culture. WADA was established by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with the assistance and participation of governments, public authorities, and other public and private anti-doping organizations. Members of the athletic community and governments from around the world continue to participate in and support the Agency. WADA is an important player in the policy regime. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) hosted the First World Conference on Doping in Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland, in February 1999. As a result, all anti-doping campaign participants banded together. As a result of the conference, the Lausanne Declaration on Doping in Sport was issued, which called for the establishment of a separate global anti-doping agency in time for the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney, Australia, in 2000. Athletes can be tested at any time or in any location during the Olympics. Employees with anti-doping control training and accreditation collect urine or blood samples for testing for anti-doping agents. Similarly, samples could be collected for this purpose by National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs), International Federations, and Major Event Originators (MEOs).
BANNED DRUGS
1. Prohibited substances and practices are always prohibited (in and out of competition)
A. Steroids anabolic androgenic
B. Growth hormones, peptide hormones, and other substances
C. Beta-2 agonists;
D. Anti-estrogenic substances;
E. Diuretics and other masked substances; and
F. Oxygen transport improvement
G. Experimentation in physics and chemistry
H. Genetic manipulation
2. Prohibited items and practices during competition.
All of the subcategories listed in Section I, as well as
A. Stimulants
B. Narcotics
C. Cannabinoids are included.
3. Corticosteroid medications
4. Alcohol and beta blockers are two prohibited substances in some sports.
*for detailed and updated list please refer list on WADA’s website.
CAUSES OF DOPING
According to the findings of numerous investigations, doping was done for the best outcome as well as for money and attention. Friends, instructors, sponsors, or close family members may occasionally encourage them in this endeavor. Similarly, the socio cultural context in which an athlete competes and lives influences their attitude toward doping. In other cases, especially at the grassroots level, a lack of understanding of athletes', coaches', and mentors' accounts is a major issue when it comes to doping. This ignorance contributes significantly to the positive doping results.
Lack of a Strong Governance Framework: In addition to the many factors that encourage doping, the nation's inability to address the issue is exacerbated by a weak governance framework and political influence. When incidents like this occur, various levels of sports authorities and governing bodies frequently disregard them because these bodies expect the best performances from the specific athlete in order to increase sponsorship and investment in that sport.
Absence of Public Debate: Games are regarded as a form of entertainment, and their operation is treated lightly. When athletes are arrested, there is no ongoing national debate, and because there is no ongoing public debate, there is little pressure on sports administrators to implement a successful anti-doping policy. If the public becomes aware of the doping problem and applies pressure on the authorities, new laws and methods to combat it will undoubtedly be enacted.
Doping Control in Sports: Domestically, it is critical to reduce the doping threat so that sports can maintain their pride in their reputation. As a result, the first and most important step must be to implement anti-doping education programmes for athletes, coaches, and support personnel. Something must be done at the local level to be effective and inclusive. Coaches should receive special training in order to instill in their athletes the sporting ideals of integrity and fair play. WADA offers online anti-doping training to both coaches and athletes. This goal should be achieved by making such training mandatory for participation in any sporting event; this is an idea worth considering. A vast majority of athletes in western countries have already participated in anti-doping processes and regard anti-doping education as a valuable tool. Local sports federations and organizations, above all, must be in charge of drug monitoring and eradication. This could be a more effective strategy for better administration in the implementation of national anti-doping strategies.
THE NEED FOR ANTIDOPING EDUCATION AND PRESENT DIFFICULTIES IN ANTIDOPING EDUCATION
Recent findings in the social and behavioral sciences have highlighted the psychological mechanisms and processes that underpin the doping decision-making process, as well as the elements that would function as safeguards to avoid doping. This data can be used to inform, design, and evaluate customized anti-doping education interventions. WADA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have emphasized the importance of using empirical findings from the social and behavioral sciences in concerted and systematic efforts to educate young athletes against doping use.
The current challenges in anti-doping education are the development of modern instructional materials appropriate for the next generation of athletes, the use of cutting-edge learning teaching methods that will facilitate effective engagement, learning, and retention of the material learned, a comprehensive assessment of the effects of anti-doping educational interventions on behavior and related cognition, and a proactive approach to doping prevention. Grassroot Awareness aims to meet these demands by developing serious knowledge that incorporates the most recent empirical data on the psychological mechanisms guiding doping decisions in both competitive and recreational sports.
Because anti-doping education is still in its early stages, a number of requirements for programme design, implementation, and evaluation must be met. Modern learning methodologies that promote successful engagement, learning, and retention of the material should be the foundation of anti-doping teaching. Current anti-doping interventions are ostensibly educational but were not developed using classroom learning strategies (e.g., Barkoukis et al., 2016; Lucidi et al., 2018). They have instead adopted a traditional, lecture-like, one-way communication approach in which the "learner" has little involvement in the learning process and is simply expected to interact with the learning material independently and then change his or her mindset.
IMPLEMENTING SERIOUS DOPING GRASSROOT AWARENESS
Anti-doping education aims to change doping intentions and behaviors by lowering risk factors and strengthening protective factors. As a result, a mechanism for assessing how well anti-doping educational initiatives achieve their goals in terms of the various aspects of behavior change must be in place. In the behavioral and health sciences, effective behavior change is defined by changes in three key areas:
· Beliefs about the behavior (e.g., perceived health risks of doping use),
· Intentions to change the behavior (e.g., intentions to avoid doping use; intentions to become or remain "clean" from PAES use), and
· Actual behavior change (e.g., modifications in doping-related behaviors, such as abuse or misuse of nutritional supplements or other ergogenic drugs that are not legal).
The first stage in developing serious grassroot awareness about doping is evaluating available E-learning platforms and selecting the best one for the anti-doping grassroot awareness piece.
The second phase involves creating a concept design for such grassroots awareness that illustrates the key structural principle. Each participant, according to the design, would take part in routine situations that evaluate and improve their individual talents, such as decision-making abilities, and allow them to self-regulate.
The third stage of grassroot awareness involves the use of flowcharts and mockup tools to create a shared understanding among its participants. Specifically, psychologists and anti-doping education professionals use flowcharts to illustrate their educational situations and decide on the game flow, user feedback, prizes, badges, and scoring system.
CONCLUSION
With the exception of WADA's ALPHA programme, there are no known anti-doping educational interventions that promote a positive approach to doping prevention, such as developing a drug-free performance enhancement culture and a "clean sport" identity (which is the only known contemporary anti-doping educational resource that explicitly promotes clean sports mentality). Furthermore, ALPHA primarily targets a small group of elite athletes who will seek information on WADA's website on their own about doping control procedures - this does not represent the larger population of athletes in grassroots and amateur sports who are at risk of doping but currently lack educational provisions and resources to avoid doping. To be effective, anti-doping education must incorporate modern learning and teaching techniques.