The mon­eti­sa­tion of hy­per-com­pet­i­tive mod­ern sports of­fers many ben­e­fits to ath­letes, es­pe­cial­ly those who ex­cel in their re­spec­tive fields, in the form of fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty di­rect­ly and through spon­sor­ship and mar­ket­ing deals.

There­fore, the stakes are very high, es­pe­cial­ly if per­for­mances slump in­to a rut. When hard work seems to be fail­ing, the cheap al­ter­na­tives to “suc­cess” may be­come very at­trac­tive, es­pe­cial­ly with ig­no­rance of the in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized, sys­tem­at­ic sci­en­tif­ic mea­sures of test­ing, mon­i­tor­ing, and eval­u­at­ing any at­tempts to cheat.

Ath­letes, there­fore, have to be aware of the high cost of the temp­ta­tions of us­ing an­a­bol­ic steroids, stim­u­lants, and di­uret­ics (es­pe­cial­ly those who have to meet spe­cif­ic weight stan­dards) as a means of ar­ti­fi­cial­ly re­turn­ing to a ‘suc­cess­ful form.’

Ath­letes may use drugs for three pur­pos­es:

· As a med­ica­tion for an ill­ness;

· Per­for­mance en­hance­ment, which pro­vides an un­fair ad­van­tage over oth­er ath­letes;

·Recre­ation­al us­es such as mar­i­jua­na.

WA­DA Ed­u­ca­tion Guide­lines to Pre­vent Dop­ing in Sport should be used by all sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions when ad­dress­ing the is­sue of drugs in their sport. The frame­work al­lows for de­vel­op­ing an­ti-dop­ing pro­grammes where all ath­letes from the ju­nior lev­el up­wards can be ap­prised about dop­ing, its risks, and its con­se­quences.

There are five fea­tures:

· Short-Term Goals- all goals must be SMART, i.e., Spe­cif­ic, Mea­sur­able, Achiev­able, Re­al­is­tic, and Time­ly. Ac­cord­ing to WA­DA, at the end of every pro­gram, there should be: 100% of all top ath­letes shall have been in­formed of their rights and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties by the end of the ac­tiv­i­ty ses­sion;

· Long-Term Goals- ac­cord­ing to WA­DA, the pur­pose of long-term goals have ben­e­fits for both ath­letes and their sup­port per­son­nel. These in­clude all Ath­letes in the Reg­is­tered Test­ing Pool (RTP) shall know the pro­hib­it­ed list, dop­ing con­trols, health con­se­quences of dop­ing use, con­se­quences of an­ti-dop­ing rule vi­o­la­tions, and the rights and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of ath­letes; All ath­lete sup­port per­son­nel must al­so be aware of the re­quire­ments of ath­letes.

· A Time­frame- the time­frame for these ed­u­ca­tion pro­grams will de­pend on in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty as well as the avail­abil­i­ty of fund­ing. Al­though fund­ing may be an is­sue in the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate, the lack of fund­ing for an­ti-dop­ing ed­u­ca­tion pro­grams is in­ex­cus­able.

· Tar­get Groups- ath­letes, ath­lete sup­port per­son­nel, coach­es, med­ical team, and sports ad­min­is­tra­tors. In cas­es of ju­nior ath­letes, it may be wise to ap­prise par­ents, guardians, and schools to rec­og­nize the im­por­tance of their role in pre­vent­ing any pos­si­ble dop­ing in­ci­dent.

· Key Mes­sages- the key mes­sages should be­come etched in the minds of all stake­hold­ers. These are - Clean Sport; All Ath­letes need to be clean and stay clean; Dop­ing is us­ing any sub­stance or method on the pro­hib­it­ed list. Dop­ing is against the spir­it of sport.

It is there­fore high­ly rec­om­mend­ed that the WA­DA’s guide­lines and the Pro­hib­it­ed List should be an in­te­gral part of the over­all de­vel­op­ment of ath­letes from the ju­nior lev­el on­wards. Such an ap­proach, along with req­ui­site mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion, min­imis­es the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ath­letes know­ing­ly run­ning afoul of WA­DA’s rules and reg­u­la­tions.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, this pre­ven­ta­tive ap­proach will go a long way to­ward en­sur­ing that ca­reers are not taint­ed with un­want­ed neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty, com­pet­i­tive de­bar­ment, and the loss of rev­enue from spon­sor­ships and en­dorse­ments.