Athlete support personnel (ASP) failing to meet responsibilities under the World Anti-Doping Code risk sanction. It is unclear whether the poor knowledge of responsibilities seen in sports physicians and coaches applies to other ASP (e.g. administrators, chiropractors, family, nutritionists, physiotherapists, psychologists and trainers). A purposive sample of Australian ASP (n=292) responded to a survey on knowledge of anti-doping rules (35 true/false questions), ethical beliefs and practice, and attitudes towards performance enhancement.Some ASP declined to participate claiming doping was irrelevant to their practice.Physicians were the most knowledgeable (30.8/35), with family and trainers the least (26.0/35). ASP reported improvements were needed to support anti-doping education (e.g. basis for anti-doping) and practice (e.g. rules). ASP also had a slightly negative attitude towards performance enhancement. Linear regression showed being a sports physician, providing support at the elite level, and 15 years experience influenced knowledge. The results confirm gaps in knowledge, and suggest more effort is needed to engage with ASP anti-doping education and practice. Examining physician and elite level ASP acquisition of knowledge may be a way forward. Future work on the context within which ASP experience anti-doping is needed, exploring acquisition and translation of knowledge into practice.

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Athlete support personnel (ASP) implement drug control policies for sport, such as antidoping. Interviews with 39 ASP reveal how differences between policy and practice play out in their "lived experience" of anti-doping. While most ASP support the ideology underlying anti-doping at a "common sense" level (using popular drug and sporting discourses such as "drugs are bad" and sporting virtue), they are critical of anti-doping practice. Combined with no direct experience with doping, ASP saw doping as a rare event unlikely to emerge in practice. Most ASP took a laissez-faire approach to anti-doping, relying on managers to know what to do in the unlikely event of a doping incident. Despite broadly supporting the ideas of anti-doping, ASP raised concerns around implementation with regards to Athlete Whereabouts and recreational drug use. In response to hypothetical doping events, a number of ASP would seek to persuade the athlete to discontinue doping rather than meet mandatory reporting obligations. Part of this extended from conflicts between professional and antidoping obligations (e.g. mandatory reporting and patient confidentiality). ASP demonstrate anti-doping policies are in tension with a practice that systematically normalises substance based performance enhancement early in sporting careers. Anti-doping agencies need to do more to engage with ASP as the "front line" of drug management in sport, including resolving contradictions across policies and in practice.Keywords: anti-doping; athlete support personnel; qualitative; Australia IntroductionDespite evidence athlete support personnel (ASP) are influential actors in the doping and anti-doping milieu, there is little evidence of how ASP understand, interpret or experience their role. The World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) (WADA, 2009) establishes a framework designed to help ASP meet their obligations to support the aims of the anti-doping ideology.National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs) develop policies designed to give effect to the WADC in local contexts. However, evidence suggests that there is a gap between anti-doping policies and the practice of anti-doping in sporting communities (cf Hanstad, Skille & Loland, 2010). In practice, evidence indicates anti-doping education policies fail to give sufficient knowledge about WADC obligations among sports physicians and coaches (e.g. Backhouse & McKenna, 2011. More broadly, an Australian survey of knowledge (awareness of rules), attitudes towards doping in sport, and ethical stance around anti-doping practice indicated ASP have a very different experience of anti-doping than might be expected under policies giving effect to the aims of the WADC (Mazanov, Backhouse, Connor, Hemphill & Quirk, 2013). This paper reports the second qualitative stage of a sequential, qualitative dominant mixed-methods project exploring ASP experience of anti-doping reported by Mazanov et al (2013) (see Section 1.2). More specifically, this qualitative interview study sought to explore and contextualise the relationship b...

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