TY - JOUR
T1 - The good, the bad, and the ugly: A qualitative secondary analysis into the impact of doping and anti-doping on clean elite athletes in five European countries
AU - Martinelli, Laura A.
AU - N Thrower, Sam
AU - Heyes, Andrew
AU - Boardley, Ian D.
AU - Backhouse, Susan H.
AU - Petróczi, Andrea
N1 - Funding Information:
The parent study, as well as the secondary analysis, received funding from the European Commission ERASMUS+ Collaborative Partnership Programme (RESPECT Project ID 2017-3178/001-001). The authors are thankful to the anti-doping education managers from Doping Authority Netherlands, National Anti-Doping Agency of Germany (NADA), Slovenian Anti-Doping Organisation (SLOADO), Sport Ireland and UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) for helping with the recruitment of athletes who led and participated in the focus groups. The authors are also thankful to the participating athletes for generously sharing their time and thoughts; and gratefully acknowledge the help received from Professor Adrian Coyle at the start of this project.
Funding Information:
Qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) is a research methodology which involves the re-use of pre-existing qualitative data to either investigate new questions or verify the findings of previous work (Heaton ). QSA has grown in popularity within social sciences alongside more general shifts towards promoting openness, transparency, and sharing of qualitative research data (see Ruggiano and Perry ). The current study re-uses ‘self-collected data’ (Heaton ) to investigate additional questions to those used in a primary research study (i.e., Petróczi et al. ). Specifically, secondary analysis was conducted on a parent dataset from a 3-year Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) study which explored the meaning and importance of ‘clean sport’ and ‘clean athlete identity’. This study was conducted as part of the ‘Research-Embedded Strategic Plan for Anti-Doping Education: Clean Sport Alliance Initiative for Tackling Doping’ (RESPECT) project funded by the European Union under the Erasmus + Collaborative Partnerships programme. All authors were part of the RESPECT project and parent study, however the authorship order changed based on relative contributions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023/1/2
Y1 - 2023/1/2
N2 - Protecting clean sport, and the rights of athletes to a clean sport environment, is at the centre of anti-doping policies. To better support and enable clean athletes and sport, an understanding of the clean athlete lifeworld is required. The current study explored the ways that clean athletes are personally affected by others’ actual or suspected instances of doping and anti-doping rule violations, and by aspects of the anti-doping system. Qualitative Secondary Analysis (QSA) was used to re-analyse and interpret 13 focus group transcripts generated from the ‘Research-Embedded Strategic Plan for Anti-Doping Education Clean Sport Alliance Initiative for Tackling Doping’ (RESPECT) project (see Petróczi et al., 2021b). The sample in the parent study included 82 self-declared clean elite athletes, from Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, and the UK. Reflexive thematic analysis generated three overarching themes: The harm done by clean athletes having to coexist with dopers, how clean athletes are undermined by a disingenuous interest in clean sport, and the anxiety experienced by clean athletes over mistakes that could lead to anti-doping rule violations. The impacts of doping on clean athletes–direct or indirect–are experienced by all clean athletes in some way. The results indicate that current approaches to anti-doping rule compliance frequently undermine clean athletes and the perceived legitimacy of the anti-doping system.
AB - Protecting clean sport, and the rights of athletes to a clean sport environment, is at the centre of anti-doping policies. To better support and enable clean athletes and sport, an understanding of the clean athlete lifeworld is required. The current study explored the ways that clean athletes are personally affected by others’ actual or suspected instances of doping and anti-doping rule violations, and by aspects of the anti-doping system. Qualitative Secondary Analysis (QSA) was used to re-analyse and interpret 13 focus group transcripts generated from the ‘Research-Embedded Strategic Plan for Anti-Doping Education Clean Sport Alliance Initiative for Tackling Doping’ (RESPECT) project (see Petróczi et al., 2021b). The sample in the parent study included 82 self-declared clean elite athletes, from Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, and the UK. Reflexive thematic analysis generated three overarching themes: The harm done by clean athletes having to coexist with dopers, how clean athletes are undermined by a disingenuous interest in clean sport, and the anxiety experienced by clean athletes over mistakes that could lead to anti-doping rule violations. The impacts of doping on clean athletes–direct or indirect–are experienced by all clean athletes in some way. The results indicate that current approaches to anti-doping rule compliance frequently undermine clean athletes and the perceived legitimacy of the anti-doping system.
KW - Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
KW - Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
KW - Clean athletes
KW - reflexive thematic analysis
KW - Olympics
KW - clean sport
KW - Paralympics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85145378652&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/de60a285-faaf-3496-8188-fdb537f5d27b/
U2 - 10.1080/19406940.2022.2161596
DO - 10.1080/19406940.2022.2161596
M3 - Article
VL - 15
SP - 3
EP - 22
JO - International Journal of Sport Policy
JF - International Journal of Sport Policy
SN - 1940-6940
IS - 1
ER -