The high­ly com­pet­i­tive and prof­itable na­ture of mod­ern sports puts sig­nif­i­cant pres­sure on ath­letes.

When their per­for­mance de­clines, the temp­ta­tion to use "cheap al­ter­na­tives"—such as an­a­bol­ic steroids or stim­u­lants—to en­hance re­sults be­comes strong. How­ev­er, this urge is re­strained by the strict glob­al an­ti-dop­ing sys­tem.

For ath­letes, in­clud­ing top women's crick­eters aim­ing for the LA 2028 Olympics (where the sport re­turns since the Paris 1900 Games) or re­gion­al events like the Pan Amer­i­can Games Li­ma 2027, un­der­stand­ing an­ti-dop­ing rules is es­sen­tial be­cause ig­no­rance is not an ac­cept­able de­fence un­der the prin­ci­ple of strict li­a­bil­i­ty. That’s why the World An­ti-dop­ing Agency (WA­DA) Ed­u­ca­tion Guide­lines are the most im­por­tant re­source for ath­letes.

The ed­u­ca­tion­al frame­work and foun­da­tion­al goals

Ath­letes must dis­tin­guish among three types of sub­stance use: med­ica­tion for ill­ness, per­for­mance en­hance­ment (which pro­vides an un­fair ad­van­tage), and recre­ation­al use like mar­i­jua­na. To ad­dress the lat­ter two, the WA­DA Ed­u­ca­tion Guide­lines to Pre­vent Dop­ing in Sport of­fer a manda­to­ry frame­work for all sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions. This frame­work is based on five key fea­tures:

1 Short-Term Goals: These should be SMART (Spe­cif­ic, Mea­sur­able, Achiev­able, Re­al­is­tic, and Time­ly). A clear ex­am­ple of a mea­sur­able goal is en­sur­ing that 100% of all top ath­letes are in­formed of their rights and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties by the end of an ac­tiv­i­ty ses­sion.

2 Long-Term Goals: These fo­cus on sus­tain­able knowl­edge. All ath­letes in the Reg­is­tered Test­ing Pool (RTP) must un­der­stand the Pro­hib­it­ed List, Dop­ing Con­trols, health risks of dop­ing, con­se­quences of An­ti-Dop­ing Rule Vi­o­la­tions (ADRVs), and their rights. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, all ath­lete sup­port per­son­nel need to be aware of ath­letes' re­quire­ments.

3 A Time­frame: The pro­gram's length varies based on in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty and fund­ing, but the de­mand for these pro­grams re­mains con­stant.

4 Tar­get Groups: The au­di­ence is wide-rang­ing, in­clud­ing ath­letes, sup­port staff, coach­es, med­ical teams, and sports ad­min­is­tra­tors. For younger ath­letes, in­volv­ing par­ents, guardians, and schools is a smart pre­ven­tive step.

5 Key Mes­sages: The main ideas to re­mem­ber for all stake­hold­ers are Clean Sport, the im­por­tance of ath­letes re­main­ing clean, the de­f­i­n­i­tion of dop­ing (us­ing any sub­stance or method list­ed on the Pro­hib­it­ed List), and the con­cept that dop­ing goes against the spir­it of sport.

This pre­ven­ta­tive ap­proach, which be­gins with ed­u­ca­tion rather than Dop­ing Con­trol (WA­DA), en­sures ca­reers are not dam­aged by com­pet­i­tive sus­pen­sions or loss of rev­enue.

Aca­d­e­m­ic sup­port and the new 2026 WA­DA rule

Aca­d­e­m­ic re­search sup­ports the ef­fec­tive­ness of this ed­u­ca­tion­al strat­e­gy. Stud­ies in­di­cate that suc­cess­ful dop­ing pre­ven­tion re­quires both cog­ni­tive (rules, risks) and af­fec­tive (val­ues, re­silience) ap­proach­es (G.L.B.M.L., 2021). While ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grams im­prove short-term knowl­edge of dop­ing and an­ti-dop­ing at­ti­tudes, main­tain­ing be­hav­iour­al change re­quires on­go­ing re­in­force­ment and ac­tive in­volve­ment (J.J.L.P. and E.K.M., 2025).

The on­go­ing vig­i­lance of an­ti-dop­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions is demon­strat­ed in the up­com­ing up­dates to the 2026 WA­DA Pro­hib­it­ed List, ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2026. These up­dates, such as ban­ning non-di­ag­nos­tic Car­bon Monox­ide (CO) in­hala­tion and mod­i­fi­ca­tions to Sal­me­terol dos­ing in­ter­vals (WA­DA, 2025), call for im­me­di­ate ed­u­ca­tion­al out­reach. New ex­am­ples of pro­hib­it­ed sub­stances found in sup­ple­ments al­so high­light the con­tin­u­ous risk of in­ad­ver­tent dop­ing and ath­letes' re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ver­i­fy all prod­ucts they con­sume.

Im­pli­ca­tions for lo­cal and re­gion­al ath­letes

The im­por­tance of strong an­ti-dop­ing ed­u­ca­tion grows for lo­cal and re­gion­al ath­letes aim­ing for ma­jor up­com­ing events, such as the Pan Amer­i­can Games 2027 in Pe­ru and the LA Olympics 2028. These ath­letes, who of­ten have few­er re­sources than their elite in­ter­na­tion­al coun­ter­parts, face a high­er risk of un­in­ten­tion­al dop­ing:

• Re­source Dis­par­i­ty: Lo­cal ath­letes might de­pend on sup­ple­ments from do­mes­tic mar­kets with less strict qual­i­ty con­trol, rais­ing con­t­a­m­i­na­tion risks.

• Knowl­edge Gap: Ac­cess to cen­tralised re­sources like WA­DA's An­ti-Dop­ing Ed­u­ca­tion and Learn­ing (ADEL) plat­form can vary across all Na­tion­al An­ti-Dop­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NA­DOs) and Na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions.

As the Pan Amer­i­can Games Li­ma 2027 nears, Pe­ru's Na­tion­al An­ti-Dop­ing Com­mis­sion has ac­tive­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed with WA­DA rep­re­sen­ta­tives, em­pha­sis­ing the coun­try's com­mit­ment to en­hanc­ing an­ti-dop­ing ef­forts and pro­mot­ing clean sport prin­ci­ples (AN­D­I­NA, 2025; WA­DA, 2025). This part­ner­ship, part of a larg­er Latin Amer­i­can ini­tia­tive, is cru­cial for en­sur­ing re­gion­al ath­letes are pre­pared.

For the 2028 LA Olympics, glob­al at­ten­tion in­creas­es. Ath­letes from the Amer­i­c­as must be ful­ly com­pli­ant with the lat­est In­ter­na­tion­al Stan­dard for Ed­u­ca­tion (ISE) and the newest Pro­hib­it­ed List well ahead of time. The rule of strict li­a­bil­i­ty ap­plies world­wide—mean­ing ath­letes are ac­count­able for any banned sub­stance found in their sam­ples, re­gard­less of in­tent. There­fore, a proac­tive, ed­u­ca­tion­al strat­e­gy from the ju­nior lev­el to the podi­um—as sup­port­ed by WA­DA—is vi­tal to safe­guard the health, in­tegri­ty, and rep­u­ta­tion of every ath­lete com­pet­ing glob­al­ly.