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The main purpose of this study was to investigate knowledge of doping practices and anti-doping education among American and Canadian female professional triathletes. The second purpose of this study was to examine the potential motivating factors to engage in prohibited doping, as well as to better understand athletes’ reasons for and/or impediments to refrain from doping practices. Six Canadian and six American female professional triathletes (n = 12) participated in semi-structured interviews (Sparkes & Smith, 2014) that lasted between 35 min and 90 min. The interview guide (see Appendix A) consisted of questions related to athletes’ experiences of anti-doping education, knowledge of doping, and experiences with drug-testing procedures. The inductive thematic analysis of the transcript data yielded four major themes including, 1) changes in the sport over last 15 years; 2) perceptions of prevalence and availability of doping; 3) perceptions of anti-doping efforts and; 4) perceptions and experiences of anti-doping education approaches. The results may help to inform anti-doping education programs at the national and international levels and speak to the need for a more coherent and communicative approach to anti-doping. This study constituted the second phase of a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) supported Social Science initiative. more...

A large number of studies have already dealt with steroid consumption in leisure and popular sports. The aim of this explorative study was to give an insight into the anabolic steroid use among male sports students in Germany. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews with n = 5 participants, all steroid-users and fellow students recruited by the third author, were conducted. Through the interviews we explored data on individual perceptions of active users with academic background and access to expertise. The interview guide is based on international findings concerning doping/steroid abuse within the framework of social differentiation theory (Alexander & Colomy, 1990; Stichweh, 2012). The study's results indicate that it is primarily the health factor that influences the planning, execution and control of steroid consumption among male sports students. Physical appearance forms a constant reason for substitution, besides the subjectively perceived pressure of physical performance inside and outside high-performance sports. However, explorative data reveal that universities’ performance requirements do not lead to steroid use. more...