Surgical doping: a policy loophole?

Abstract

A growing number of athletes have undergone largely elective surgery for performance-enhancing reasons. Treating so-called surgical doping as a policy arbitrage, this research note provides an overview of sport-related surgical enhancement within the context of anti-doping policies. Our findings reveal that such policies are silent on the issue of surgical doping, lending themselves to a loophole World Anti-Doping Agency and other governing bodies should consider addressing as a ‘prohibited method’.

Keywords:

• enhancement
• integrity