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BackgroundThe Anti-Doping Thesaurus is a tool designed to facilitate access by athletes to the literature produced by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Doping in sport is the attempt to improve athletic performance by using substances or methods that are prohibited. Doping has been a feature of sport since at least the ancient Greeks, who in the third century BC were taking varieties of mushrooms to improve their athletic performance. In recent decades the intersection of pharmacology and chemistry with sport has led to remarkably sophisticated doping practices, and equally sophisticated efforts to combat doping. Athletes are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the complex medical terminology and anti-doping rules and testing procedures established by WADA and other international agencies involved in the fight against doping in sport. The Anti-Doping Thesaurus aims to provide a bridge between the language familiar to athletes and the jargon-rich literature produced by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The OrganizationThe Anti-Doping Thesaurus supports the work of the World Anti-Doping Agency. WADA was created in 1999 to coordinate and monitor at the international level the fight against doping in sport. WADA seeks to foster a doping-free culture in sport through doping education, research, and enforcement. WADA's activities include developing and monitoring compliance with international doping rules, conducting doping testing, funding scientific research, and educating athletes about the harms of doping. WADA is headquartered in Montreal, and has four regional offices in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. It has an annual budget of approximately US$20 million, and employs 45 staff. The CollectionThe Anti-Doping Thesaurus is designed to provide access to literature produced by the World Anti-Doping Agency. This includes:
The material in the collection includes these formats:
The UsersThe users of the Anti-Doping Thesaurus are elite athletes. The Anti-Doping Thesaurus is aimed at supporting athletes in retrieving documents from WADA's website, and providing natural language entry points into WADA's jargon-rich literature. Elite athletes are one of several user groups that use WADA literature. Other user groups include coaches and trainers, physicians, pharmaceutical company personnel, laboratory technicians, sport medicine researchers, anti-doping officials, government anti-doping administrators, and international sport officials. The Anti-Doping Thesaurus is not aimed at these other user groups, but rather focused on the needs of elite athletes. In recent decades, doping practices and anti-doping rules have become remarkably sophisticated. Lists of prohibited substances read like pharmacology texts ("norclostebol, norethandrolone, oxabolone, oxandrolone, etc. etc."). New performance enhancing substances seem to emerge weekly. Prohibited substances vary between sports federations and countries. Testing procedures are complicated and change often. Athletes are finding it increasingly difficult to navigate the complex terminology and procedures involved in the fight against doping. They need to know what substances and methods are banned by WADA and other international agencies, what substances and methods are permitted, what the testing procedures are, and what processes and penalties flow from anti-doping violations. They need to know how the slang and everyday terms relating to doping and doping control that they've heard in the locker room and on the trainer's table translate into official WADA terminology. The Anti-Doping Thesaurus aims to provide a bridge between the language familiar to athletes and the jargon-rich literature produced by WADA. The Thesaurus will facilitate athletes in answering such questions as:
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