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≡ AIU ANNUAL REPORT ≡
At the Olympic Games and the World Championships, it’s the medal winners who get almost all of the attention. And, in its 2024 Annual Report, the Athletics Integrity Unit was happy to note that it had the medal winners and medal contenders under surveillance:
● “A total of 10,112 doping controls – including 7,080 out-of-competition (OOC) tests – were conducted on the 1,876 [athletics] athletes who competed in Paris (average of 5.4 tests/athlete).”
● “97% of medallists in Paris were included in one of the AIU testing pools (87% in the main Registered Testing Pool and 10% in second-tier pools). All medallists in Paris had at least one OOC test before competing.”
● “Of the 319 finalists in Paris, 224 (70%) were part of AIU’s RTP and another 53 (total of 87%) were monitored by the AIU either as part of the second-tier AIU testing pools or through express recommendations to NADOs [national anti-doping organizations]. Only seven of the 319 finalists were not tested out-of-competition prior to the Olympic Games.”
This was, of course, only part of the AIU effort in 2024, which included a much wider testing program:
● 12,982 samples from 3,744 athletes from 139 countries
● 64.5% were out-of-competition tests
● 51% men and 49% women
● 522 competitions at which the AIU did testing
● 838 athletes in the highest-level Registered Testing Pool
● 47% of tests on African athletes
● 26% of tests on European athletes
● 12% of tests on North American athletes
● 10% of tests on Asian athletes
● 2% of tests each on Oceania and South American athletes
In terms of testing by events, distance athletes made up 63% of all testing followed by sprints at 14%. Middle distances (8%), throws (7%), jumps (6%) made up most of the rest, with combined events at 2%.
Out of all this testing, there were 405 doping cases of some type which were flagged in 2024:
● 100 AIU cases and 305 national-level cases
● Of the 100 AIU cases: 44 violations, 36 pending, 20 closed (no violation)
● Of the 100 AIU cases: 9 refusal to sample or “whereabouts” failure
● Of the 305 national cases: 233 were doping positives (117 steroids), 23 had atypical findings and 49 were non-analytical (38 refusal to sample or “whereabouts”).
Education was also an increasing focus, with the AIU preferring sessions with small groups. It did 74 seminars in 2024 in 14 languages, and, importantly, reached 610 of the 838 athletes in the Registered Testing Pool one-on-one during the year.
The AIU did this for a cost of $11,897,586, most of which went to staff costs ($4.60 million) and testing ($4.48 million). Another $627,266 was spent on disciplinary efforts and legal fees. Revenue, from road-race testing fees and “recovered expenses” from Russia and Kenya totaled $3.84 million, so World Athletics picked up $8.06 million to underwrite the 2024 effort.
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As thorough and impressive as the AIU report was, it did not detail the situation in its ineligible list, which included 660 persons, including athletes, coaches and support personnel. The leading countries with individuals on the list included (as of 1 July 2025):
● 139: Kenya
● 129: India
● 61: Russia
● 29: China
● 20: Turkey
● 18: Italy
● 18: South Africa
● 17: Ukraine
● 15: Ethiopia
● 14: Morocco
● 14: United States
● 11: France
● 10: Kuwait
● 10: Nigeria
Taken together, the top three countries account for 49.8% of the list. Wow. Kenya is now under direct AIU supervision, India has been told by the International Olympic Committee that its 2036 Olympic bid is damaged by its doping situation, and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency continues to be suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
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