Anti-Doping And Privacy

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) fights a sophisticated war against athletes and those around them who attempt to artificially manipulate the athlete's body to enhance training and performance. It is a challenging fight, requiring highly-sophisticated testing and extensive resources to try to remain relevant in the context of ever-evolving off-script drug use and the development of designer drugs and means of artificial performance manipulation. In the pursuit of a fairer competition environment, the athletes' privacy is altered. Anti-doping officials know the athletes' whereabouts on a daily basis, random drug tests are conducted, they are asked to pee in a cup in front of strangers and athlete biological passports are created. The benefit to the athlete is, ideally, the belief that they are competing in a fairer environment, one in which they don't have to sacrifice long-term health for moments of glory.