Doping in Boxing: Important Legal Aspects

The recent allegations of supposedly undetectable methods have relocated doping in boxing at the center of controversy. You'll find more information about the subject in this article.

Despite all of its conquests and unforgettable characters, boxing appears in a ranking that’s far from being worthy of pride. According to numbers compiled by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), boxing is among the ten disciplines with the most positive cases of doping in the history of sports. Keep reading to learn more about doping in boxing.

Is there undetectable doping in boxing?

In late 2017, two WADA doctors revolutionized sports medicine with an alarming finding. They claimed that some people were using knowledge and technologies from gene therapy to achieve imperceptible doping.

The released information stated that they had analyzed the voluntary injection of a virus that was capable of modifying the boxer’s genetic information.

This happened during a conference by Nicholas Rizzo and Raúl Saucedo in the 96th Annual Convention of the World Boxing Association. On that day, they exposed a completely new and quite grim outlook.

These famous cases have made it clear that lab tests and sports regulations don’t account for the new methods and techniques of doping in boxing.

On the one hand, technological gaps prevented WADA labs from detecting cases such as the so-called ‘genetic doping’. On the other hand, even if it was possible to detect the presence of a certain virus in the boxer’s body, it would be unlikely to penalize him.

This practice isn’t expressly prohibited in sports legislation or in the codes of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Is it then a gap in the regulations?

Therefore, future prevention and combat of doping in boxing would inevitably depend on the advancement of science and sports medicine. The same thing goes for updating the legal texts and ethical regulations that govern the practice of sports on an international level.

Legal aspects of doping: the importance of updating

The case we mentioned above is an obvious example that the legal aspects of boxing must be constantly updated. We can’t pretend that in a world that changes at such a fast pace, laws and regulations will always remain the same. We must assume that both sports and athletes will be in constant transformation, following the pace of society.

If we talk specifically about doping, we can clearly see how the modernization of the concept itself has allowed experts to make significant progress in its prevention. Traditionally, doping was the use of prohibited or non-regulatory chemical methods, elements or substances.

But, as time went by and new methods appeared, doping began to take a broader dimension in the sports field. Following the publication of the World Anti-Doping Code by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA-AMA), the concept has begun to incorporate any act that violates anti-doping rules in sports.

This broader understanding has also allowed us to have legal discussions about doping that go beyond the athlete. For years, coaches, doctors and members of technical, medical and staff management have also been guilty of doping.

What’s legally considered doping in boxing?

Basically, any practice or act that violates the norms of the World Anti-Doping Code is doping. Here are some examples of sports doping:

• Using prohibited methods or substances (or trying to do so) during sports competitions or events.
• Presenting prohibited substances, as well as their metabolites and markers, in the bloodstream, urine or other bodily fluids of athletes.
• Refusal to provide samples or avoid clinical/medical tests without a justifiable cause.
• Commit any kind of deception or fraud in the controls, tests, and results.

• Being absent from tests scheduled out of the competition.
• Buying, selling or possessing prohibited substances and methods (or trying to do so).
• Facilitate, apply or prescribe prohibited chemical substances to athletes; as well as stimulating or encouraging them to consume, buy, sell or facilitate the substances to other athletes.
• Establish, promote or participate in prohibited associations.
• Act as an accomplice to any of the conducts mentioned above. This includes covering up or not reporting said infractions to the competent authorities.

Following controversies over gene doping in boxing, the WADA had to incorporate gene therapy into its Prohibition List as well.

For that reason, according to WADA, those who practice “non-therapeutic use of cells, genes or genetic elements, or modulation of gene expression, in order to increase athletic performance” may now be charged with the crime of doping.