What happens after a positive test: the process, step by step

Every other page on this site is written to keep you out of this one.

Before you hear anything

A laboratory reporting an adverse analytical finding does not immediately produce a letter. There is a review first, and it is mandatory.

The organisation responsible for results management has to check three things before notifying anybody.

• Whether you hold a therapeutic use exemption covering the substance, or are entitled to apply for one retroactively
• Whether there was an apparent departure from the testing standard or the laboratory standard that could have caused the finding
• Whether the substance is a Specified Substance that could plausibly have arrived by a permitted route, for instance inside a prescribed medication

If that review finds a reason to close the file, it closes. Cases do end here, and you never hear about them, which is part of why the process looks more inevitable from outside than it is.

The notification

If the file does not close, you are notified. The letter has to tell you five things.

The substance or method found. Your right to have the B sample analysed and to be present when it is opened. Your right to request the laboratory documentation package. Whether a provisional suspension applies or has been imposed.

And the opportunity to explain.

That last one is not a formality. Explanations offered at this stage, with documentation behind them, are how cases get resolved before they become charges.

Provisional suspension, and why it turns on the substance

This part decides your next few months, and it rests on a distinction most fighters have never heard of.

You have the right to a provisional hearing, before or immediately after it is imposed, and the right to request an expedited full hearing. A mandatory suspension is not always immovable: it can be challenged at that hearing where there is a strong showing of no fault or of a contaminated source, and the 2027 Code widens the grounds for doing so.

The Code describes a provisional suspension as a protective measure rather than a punishment. That distinction is legally real and practically thin. During it you cannot compete, you cannot train with your team, and funding stops.

For a fighter mid-camp, that is the camp.

One thing to hold onto: if the B sample does not confirm the A, the provisional suspension is lifted immediately and you carry no consequence from that finding.

The B sample

Use the right. Analysis is not infallible, B samples do sometimes fail to confirm, and cases have ended there.

You or your representative may attend the opening. The deadline for requesting it is short and stated in the notification, and missing it forfeits the right.

Request the laboratory documentation package at the same time. It is what a specialist reads to establish whether the analysis was performed correctly, and you cannot assess that from a result alone.

The charge

If the B confirms the A, or you do not request it, a charge letter follows. It sets out the specific violation, the consequences being proposed, and the time you have to respond.

That window is typically 20 days.

From here there are three routes rather than the two people expect. Accept the proposed sanction, which usually resolves matters faster and sometimes on better terms. Request a hearing.

Or negotiate a results management agreement, a mechanism in the Code for resolving a case early on agreed terms.

The hearing

Before a body that has to be independent of the organisation that charged you. You may present evidence, call witnesses and bring expert testimony.

You are entitled to a reasoned written decision rather than an outcome.

The results management standard sets a target of 6 months from notification to a first-instance decision, excluding complex cases. Treat that as an aim rather than a promise, because real cases run longer.

Some jurisdictions operate an expedited track. Under the American system it applies where a significant competition is less than 45 days away.

That trigger is a feature of that programme rather than a general rule, so check what your own organisation offers.

The numbers

Sanctions start from a base and move according to what you can prove.

Intentional has a specific meaning here. That you knew you were committing a violation, or were reckless as to whether your conduct was one.

Not a moral judgement, and reckless does a great deal of work in that sentence.

No Significant Fault or Negligence is the route most contaminated supplement cases travel, and it depends entirely on having exercised care you can document.

No Fault or Negligence is very rarely established and almost never on an anabolic agent.

Substantial assistance, meaning genuine help in uncovering violations by other people, can reduce a sanction by up to three quarters, and further in exceptional cases with WADA's approval.

The part nobody warns fighters about

Two things sit outside the sanction and land regardless of it.

The results are gone. Results from the competition at which the sample was taken are automatically disqualified: medals, points, prizes, records. This applies even where No Fault or Negligence is established, which means a fighter who proves complete innocence still loses that night.

And you cannot train. During ineligibility or provisional suspension you cannot train with your team, not merely compete. For most athletes that is an inconvenience.

For a fighter it removes sparring, coaching and the room, which is most of what the job consists of.

Appeals

Decisions from national anti-doping organisations and most international federations are appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The window is generally 21 days from receiving the reasoned decision.

Two features surprise people.

WADA holds a right of appeal on almost any decision, including one in your favour, which is why a resolved case is not always a closed one.

And an appeal does not automatically suspend the sanction. You serve it while you argue about it, unless the tribunal orders otherwise.

What changes in January 2027

The base structure survives: 4 years and 2 years, with the same routes to reduction. Three changes are worth knowing, and they run in the athlete's favour.

The concept of a contaminated product becomes a contaminated source, widening it beyond supplements to food, drink, environmental exposure and contact transfer. Reduction where contamination is established becomes more flexible.

And new grounds appear for lifting a mandatory provisional suspension where no fault or a contaminated source looks likely.

The detail is in what the 2027 Code changes.

What decides the outcome happens earlier

The pattern across successful cases is consistent, and it has little to do with the quality of the argument at the hearing: it is documentation created before anybody knew it would be needed.

A batch-tested product with the batch on a register. A receipt. A written record of what entered the camp and when, and who approved it.

A doctor told in writing that the patient is a tested athlete.

The athlete who kept those has a route through No Significant Fault. The athlete who did not has a story, and strict liability does not accept stories.

Which is the reason the rest of this site exists.