Development of the role of national anti-doping organisations in the fight against doping: from past to future

Abstract

When action against doping began, sport itself was, as a rule, responsible for anti-doping measures and governments often had only a subsidiary function. However, due to doping scandals or doping allegations, the formation of independent anti-doping organisations (NADOs) was already discussed in the 1990s in some countries as guarantors for clean sports. In the course of the doping scandal at the Tour de France in 1998 and the systematic intervention of the French state, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was founded 1999 at an international level. In the following years, the WADA-model was often copied at a national level and a multitude of independent NADOs came into being. NADOs play a key role worldwide in combating doping. Their influence in developing an international anti-doping policy and implementing it in the form of standards and regulations is today, however, low; they are not directly represented in the decision-making bodies of the WADA. This should be changed with regard to elaborating the new World Anti-Doping Programme for 2014.