Norwegian study on Athlete Whereabouts system

This article is interesting but it doesn't really do justice to the arguments against the whereabouts system. The authors promise an empirical study in the near future. If anyone wants a copy to read email me.I'll post some notes on the article after re-reading it.


Elite athletes' duty to provide information on their whereabouts: Justifiable anti-doping work or an indefensible surveillance regime?

Authors: Dag Vidar Hanstad a; Sigmund Loland a

Affiliation: a Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway

DOI: 10.1080/17461390802594219


Published in: journal European Journal of Sport Science, Volume 9, Issue 1 January 2009 , pages 3 - 10
Subject: Sport & Exercise Science;


Abstract

In this article, we explain and reflect critically upon the athlete whereabouts reporting system in top-level sports initiated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). This system makes it compulsory for athletes who are in a registered testing pool in their national and/or international federation to submit information about their whereabouts. In this way, athletes are required to be available for a no advance notice doping test throughout the year. If an athlete provides incorrect information or cannot be found when a no advance notice test is supposed to be taken (a missed test), he or she may be given a warning. In most sports and national anti-doping regulations, three such warnings within 18 months may be regarded as a violation of the doping regulations and may lead to exclusion from sport for between 3 months and 2 years. The system is controversial. In this article, we examine the key objections to the system and, more specifically, objections connected to ideas of justice and athletes' autonomy and right to self-determination. The argument will be a practical ethical one informed by a survey on attitudes towards the whereabouts system carried out among 236 athletes belonging to the registered testing pool in Norway. We conclude that if the basic principles of anti-doping work are accepted, WADA's whereabouts reporting system represents nothing other than an efficient extension of this work.

Keywords: Anti-doping; elite athletes; whereabouts reporting system; surveillance