By David Owen
June 18 – Brazilians and Portuguese have emerged as the worst football offenders in a new report on anti-doping rule violations compiled by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Of a total of 86 football-related anti-doping rule violations committed in 2013, the report shows that Brazilians were responsible for 10 of them and Portuguese for seven. Third place in this league table of shame is shared by a cluster of nations with five violations each: Belgium, France, Greece, Iran and Italy.
The report makes it possible to compare football’s drug-testing record with that of other sports, and it has to be said the beautiful game does not fare too badly in this benchmarking process.
For one thing, more football-related samples – 28,002 – were taken than for any other sport; and while the number of adverse analytical findings – 140 – was relatively high, it was far less so when expressed as a percentage of samples analysed. To be specific, figures in the report indicated that 0.5% of football samples produced adverse analytical findings. Equivalent proportions in other sports included: athletics 1.17%, cycling 1.25%, rugby 1.27%, weightlifting 3.36%, powerlifting 5.23%, American football 5.96%, bodybuilding 10.47% and field hockey 0.14%.
David Howman, WADA’s director general, said the organisation was “pleased to provide the most comprehensive set of doping statistics to date”.
He said the new report, “when combined with the annual testing figures report, will be of value to the anti-doping community’s efforts to protect clean athletes in every country around the world”.
The analysis, WADA’s first-ever anti-doping rule violations report, showed that 1,953 sanctions were levied across all sports for anti-doping rule violations committed in 2013. The sanctions were meted out to athletes and athlete support personnel from 115 countries in 89 sports. The report discloses that 207,513 samples were received and analysed in all, with 2,540 – around 1.2% – resulting in adverse analytical findings.
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