Forum For Anti-Doping in Recreational Sport +

Background Anti-doping work traditionally focuses on elite sport, despite growing concern that doping is expanding into recreational sport, where even at a small scale makes societal and public health problems. Doping negatively affects sport’s public perception, demotivates participants and undermines its principles. Partners, and participants of the original FAIR project's Annual Forums (2017-19), expressed a clear desire for the work to continue via FAIR+. Objectives Over 2020-2022, the FAIR+ project set out to: further research the prevalence of, and motivations behind, doping in recreational sport, create educational guidelines for recreational sport coaches, and to maintain another 3 years of the annual FAIR Forums. Implementation Despite COVID-19 disrupting half of FAIR+’s lifespan, the project successfully held 3 highly regarded Forums where participants learned from expert speakers and keynotes, and of the project’s research deliverables’ progress, which culminated in the presentation of final findings at the last Forum (2022). Results significantly contribute to anti-doping understanding for both practitioners and researchers. Achievements The annual Forums attracted a global audience and effectively maintained an open space for anti-doping collaboration and discussion. They served as the prime platform to present research strategies, culminating with the final findings of the prevalence of doping in recreational sport, the psychological motivations behind doping, and evidence-informed Educational Guidelines. Each Forum recording remains available for (re)watching, with all intellectual outputs, on the project webpage.