Despite scientific advances that make it possible to detect increasingly refined substances and ongoing efforts to strengthen doping controls, the use of performance-enhancing substances (PES) continues to occur in sports. While the proportion of anti-doping rule violations detected by doping controls is less than 2% (1), social science research suggests that doping prevalence is likely much higher (2). Some studies suggest prevalence rates as high as 35% and question the effectiveness of current doping control systems.
Anti-doping policies were developed to protect the right of athletes to train and compete in a doping-free environment, and testing is an important tool to secure this right. Although the rules are enacted and enforced regardless of athletes' perceptions of the effort, anti-doping authorities rely on the support and trust of athletes to effectively prevent doping in elite sport and to legitimise the rather extensive anti-doping programme (3). In securing the athletes' right to doping-free sport, doping controls are an important measure (4).
Doping controls (tests) are conducted to obtain analytical evidence of an athlete's compliance (or non-compliance) with the Code's strict prohibition on the presence/use of a prohibited substance or prohibited method. Any Athlete may be required to provide a Sample at any time and in any location by an Anti-Doping Organisation with testing authority (3).
The number of tests at the global level increased significantly until the early 2010s, when optimization through intelligent (evidence-based) testing was recommended. Annually, about 280 thousand tests (both urine and blood tests) are performed worldwide, but the percentage of positive cases is not increasing and each year less than 2% of doping tests performed show a positive test result.
Recent studies (4)suggest that current policies have led to a different kind of inconsistency and new forms of inequality for athletes under stricter regimes due to the large differences between the harmonisation standards of the players and their implementation of the code, including international standards for doping control and testing. For example, studies have shown that national implementation of the Code takes different forms (5).
Although there are various mechanisms for investigating or detecting illicit drug use in sport, such as oral and written evidence, academic research, and investigative journalism, encouraging individuals to report illicit drug use (in other words, to be a "doping whistleblower") has received increased attention in research (6). Whistleblowers have become increasingly important and impactful in exposing doping in sport. Recent examples include Russian insiders whose allegations led to the country's exclusion from some sports at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and from the entire 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
How willing we are to report doping abuse also depends on our level of moral development. Kohlberg defined three stages of moral orientation, each consisting of two stages (7) - this is a theory related to Piaget's theory of cognitive development, as it uses a person's thinking to determine the level of moral development (8). Kohlberg (9) describes three stages of moral development-the pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional stages, where a person's sense of morality is defined in terms of more abstract principles and values. Although we would expect people who are at this highest stage to be most ready to "blow the whistle" (9), this stage is rarely reached. Moral development is a difficult construct to measure because what we are willing to say and what we do can differ considerably (10).
Cognitive theories of moral development understand moral maturity as understanding the society in which we live-the more complex the society, the more complex one's morality must be in order for the person to successfully adapt to it (11). Since doping abuse is a complex issue, the athlete's morality should be at the highest possible level in order to respect the rules and regulations and truly understand the importance of doping to the sport and to each individual athlete.
Moral development, according to Kohlberg, depends on the level of cognitive development, but also on motivation (12) - a person may be able to act at a higher moral level, but does not show it in a certain environment because it may be "dangerous" for them to do the right thing. It also depends on taking on social roles - a person may take on different roles in different environments, which also means they will make moral decisions at different levels. Finally, moral development also depends on the structure of rights in social groups and institutions - groups that promote decision making and responsibility, where the principles of equality and reciprocity apply, will stimulate moral development far more than rigid groups and institutions based on authority (13). This means that we should focus heavily on education and understanding as a means of prevention, rather than punishment, in promoting the moral development of athletes.
The increasing prevalence of whistleblowing in sport has led to the need to understand the conditions underlying the intent of whistleblowing. Whistleblowing involves the reporting of an illegal (or unethical) act by an observer who has inside information about the wrongdoing (14). Track and field athletes appeared willing to contribute (2)to the elimination of doping in athletics by blowing the whistle, while rugby league players revealed a moral dilemma by suggesting that they would all abide by a code of silence and not report a teammate for doping despite disagreeing with the teammate's actions.
Over the past fifteen years, there have been an increasing number of high-profile whistleblowing cases in sports. One of the first cases of whistleblowing in doping was when Trevor Graham, a former track and field coach from the United States, anonymously called the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and alerted them to undetectable anabolic steroids being distributed to world-class athletes (15). The case, which became known as the BALCO scandal, was at the time the largest doping scandal in the history of athletics, also involving sprinters and baseball stars. Whistleblowing was also a reason for one of the biggest doping scandals in cycling. Landis, a former teammate of Lance Armstrong, blew the whistle on Armstrong after he himself was caught blood doping. The case ended with Armstrong being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and ordered to pay millions in compensation.
In Denmark they studied (4) how elite athletes perceive and trust the functioning of the doping control system in their sport. She found that about one-third of athletes disagree to some extent that the number of tests and the selection of athletes for doping control are appropriate.
Athletes who rely on the testing system being effective and working well worldwide show greater distrust or dissatisfaction with the current testing system. The different views of the athletes show that the current anti-doping policy is simultaneously met with sport, (dis)trust and frustration. By including the views and experiences of top Danish athletes, this study confirmed that the current testing system faces obstacles and contributed to the knowledge of some of the challenges WADA faces in implementing the policy.
About 90% of all athletes (16)believed that anti-doping testing should be conducted regularly by sports federations, during training and not only during competitions. 72% felt that only a small proportion of athletes who engage in illegal doping practises are detected during anti-doping controls. Researchers (17)also found that the majority of their participants believed that testing for banned substances is an effective way to deter people from using them.
On the other hand, athletes often have negative attitudes toward testing (18) about two-thirds of their participants did not believe that testing protocols were fair. More than half of the athletes believed that drug testing is the most effective way to prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports, but a large majority agreed that drug testing does not catch all athletes who cheat. From this study, we can also see that participants do not believe that drug testing is an invasion of privacy and accept drug testing as part of participation.
Athletes believe (19, 20)that first offenders should receive a lenient sentence and second offenders should receive a life sentence. Almost half of the participating Croatian athletes (21)believe that a financial penalty is the correct sanction for doping offenders, while one-third of the participants would opt for a life ban and one-fourth for an initially lenient, then life ban. Similarly, Iranian athletes were found to be against the free use of all drugs (22) and strongly believe in doping controls, the same result was found among Iranian coaches (23). Studies uniformly confirm that the majority of athletes oppose doping and support doping controls - both in terms of attitude and behavioural intention (18).
The purpose of this study was to examine attitudes toward drug testing and anonymous reporting among male and female athletes, among coaches and athletes, and among athletes in team and individual sports. We will attempt to find a correlation between attitudes toward drug testing and attitudes toward anonymous reporting and attempt to predict intention to report anonymously based on attitudes toward drug testing.