32 ICRAV 2026 Analytical approaches in sports drug testing are continuously updated and expanded, exploiting new information on drug metabolism and disposition in humans as well as innovations in sample preparation and analysis, and also novel strategies focusing on marker-based test methods have been assessed, developed, and implemented. The resulting improved detection capability and retrospectivity of sports drug testing approaches has considerably limited the formerly available options of substances and methods of doping. In addition, however, and similar to the general population, elite athletes are exposed to a complex set of environmental factors including chemicals, biological and physical stressors, which constitute an exposome that is, unlike for the general population, subjected to specific scrutiny for athletes due to applicable antidoping regulations and routine doping controls. Test methods in sports drug testing, relying largely on chromatographic-mass spectrometric methods, were optimized and applied to newly identified challenges, including e.g. the detection and characterization of superior metabolic products of prohibited as well as non-prohibited substances, aiming at enhancing the analytical data available for decision-making processes in test result management. Additional information, resulting from controlled (microdosed) elimination studies and simulations of contamination scenarios, complements the dataset of routine doping controls. 1. Thevis M, Kuuranne T, Fedoruk M, Geyer H. Sports Drug Testing and the Athletes’ Exposome. Drug Test Anal. 2021;13:1814-21. doi: 10.1002/dta.3187 2. Thevis M, Gorgens C, Guddat S, Thomas A, Geyer H. Mass spectrometry in sports drug testing-Analytical approaches and the athletes’ exposome. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2024;34(1):e14228. doi: 10.1111/sms.14228 ABSTRACT Professor Thevis graduated in organic chemistry and sports sciences in 1998. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry in 2001 and did post-doctoral research at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2002. After being a senior researcher from 2003 to 2005 he was appointed as Professor for Preventive Doping Research at the German Sport University Cologne in 2006. Mario Thevis further qualified as Forensic Chemist (in 2009) and has been the director of the European Monitoring Center for Emerging Doping Agents since 2011. In August 2017, he accepted the position of Director of the Institute of Biochemistry of the German Sport University Cologne and, thereby, also the position of Director of the WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory Cologne, Germany. Mario Thevis German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, NRW, Germany Doping or contamination? A challenge growing with improved analytical retrospectivity
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