Australian athlete support personnel lived experience of anti-doping

Abstract

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...

Effects of situational costs and benefits on projected doping likelihood

“…The current research offers new insights into the importance of situational costs and benefits in athletes' doping likelihood. Our findings can educate those looking after the interests of the athlete, such as support personnel seeking to protect athletes from the harms of substance misuse (Mazanov, 2017) or the anti-doping system (Mazanov, Hemphill, Connor, Quirk, & Backhouse, 2015). Our evidence supports the argument that costs and benefits influence athlete decisions about using banned substances (Strelan & Boeckmann, 2003).…”

Examining Coaches’ Experiences and Opinions of Anti-Doping Education

“…For the first time, this study examined the conversion rate for awareness to engagement in anti-doping programmes. The findings partially support previous research (Allen et al, 2017;Mazanov et al, 2015) pointing to low engagement being influenced by a lack of awareness of opportunities. Indeed, almost half of the coaches were unaware of programmes and therefore are unable to engage with them.…”

“…It has been suggested that low engagement with formal anti-doping education programmes could be underpinned by low awareness (Patterson et al, 2014). Indeed, some coaches have recently reported having no awareness of anti-doping-related learning opportunities (Allen et al, 2017;Vankhaldo & Planida, 2013) and have attributed the lack of opportunities to the dominance of athlete-centred programmes (Allen, Dimeo, Morris, Dixon & Robinson, 2014;Mazanov, Hemphill, Connor, Quirk & Backhouse, 2015) and working at 'sub-elite' levels of competition (Mazanov et al, 2015). North (2009) found a similar trend in the UK's coaching population where those working at what are perceived as 'lower levels' of the participation spectrum (i.e., working with children or recreational participants) tended to not have any qualifications or lower level qualifications than those working at the highperformance end of the spectrum.…”

“…North (2009) found a similar trend in the UK's coaching population where those working at what are perceived as 'lower levels' of the participation spectrum (i.e., working with children or recreational participants) tended to not have any qualifications or lower level qualifications than those working at the highperformance end of the spectrum. However, there is also emerging evidence to suggest that coaches' low engagement with anti-doping-related activities might be due to a perception among coaches that anti-doping is 'not relevant' to them because doping is not prevalent in their context (Allen et al, 2017;Mazanov et al, 2015). Therefore, there is a need to further explore coaches' awareness and engagement with programmes and the factors that might influence this, including coaching context/domain.…”

Doping in sport: Whose problem is it?

“…A total of 16 relevant articles on doping were identified. This included seven articles in Sport Management Review Houlihan, 2014;Mazanov, Hemphill, Connor, Quirk, & Backhouse, 2015;Petróczi & Haugen, 2012;Smith et al, 2010;Stewart, Adair, & Smith, 2011;Wagner, Pedersen, & Møller, 2014). There were five articles in European Sport Management Quarterly (Hanstad, 2008;Probert & Leberman, 2009;Tainsky & Winfree, 2008;Wagner, 2010Wagner, , 2011.…”