My article on ostarine published earlier this week led to questions about how fair strict liability is (and what it really means!). Anti doping in sport is governed by the World Anti-Doping Code, written by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). The Code is the central document summarizing anti-doping policies,…
Category: Drugs
Ostarine: the performance-enhancing drug giving anti-doping agencies a headache
Tom Bassindale, Sheffield Hallam University A drug designed to help cancer patients rebuild wasting muscles has become one of the most contentious substances in elite sport – and the scientist who discovered it now spends more time trying to stop people using it than encouraging its medical use. James Dalton,…
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Enhanced Games – “Are You Not Entertained?”
The Enhanced Games is a new, multi event, international sports competition set to debut in May 2026 in Las Vegas. The point of difference? Actively encouraging the use of performance enhancing drugs. No more World Anti-Doping Agency rules, just medically supervised doping. Is this a new age in competition or a update to gladiatorial fights to the death?
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Can you use AI to dope?
“Give Me a Doping Programme to Improve my Marathon Time” We’ve all been reading about how AI is going to steal all our jobs, can it steal the job of the athlete support personnel in guiding the use of illicit methods to improve performance? As a recreational runner (‘hobby jogger’?)…
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World Anti-Doping Agency ban Carbon Monoxide use from 2026
In the last few weeks the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) have published their new list of prohibited substances and methods, as it does each year. This year they have added a new method onto the list – the non-diagnostic use of carbon monoxide (CO). Isn’t CO in the atmosphere all…
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Meldonium: the drug allegedly found in Mykhailo Mudryk’s doping test explained
Tom Bassindale, Sheffield Hallam University First published in The Conversation Chelsea Football Club revealed today that one of their players, Mykhailo Mudryk, has tested positive for a banned substance in a routine drug test. The 23-year-old Ukranian winger said he has not knowingly taken any performance-enhancing drugs. It has been…
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How do we know if testosterone is ‘non-endogenous’?
Yesterday we discovered that Paul Pogba, the Juventus midfielder was provisionally suspended after drugs test found “non-endogenous testosterone metabolites” in a urine sample. The sample was collected on 20th August after Pogba was an unused substitute in a game in Italy. Pogba can face a ban of four years if…
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Should cannabis be banned as a performance enhancing drug?
Today it was announced that the American athlete Sha’Carri Richardson had tested positive for carboxy – THC (the main metabolite of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis), during the Olympic trials in Oregon in May. Sha’Carri Richardson admitted to using cannabis after finding out that her mother had died. Unfortunately…
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Doping and AntiDoping, Pure Doublethink – Icarus Film Review
Film Review – Icarus by Brian Fogle I was fortunate to be given a pass to go to DocFest to see the film Icarus, by Brian Fogle. On Tuesday 13/6/17 I will be talking about this in Sheffield (DocFest Link) please come along. Brian Fogle finished the Haute…
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Forensic scientists arrested following probe at Manchester toxicology lab
Last month the UK’s Forensic Science Regulator, Gillian Tully, warned that the cuts to forensic science provision in the UK could lead to miscarriages of justice. I doubt she thought a major case would come up so quickly. It has been reported today that two forensic scientists working for Randox Testing…