This year, more than 300 samples have been collected over the course of the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the FIBA World Championship for women and the FIBA Under-17 World Championships for men and women, with a minimum of three players tested per team. 

The testing was carried out to establish athlete biological passports (ABPs) and to detect human growth hormones and erythropoietin among others.

The findings showed that no prohibited substances were detected in any of the samples.

"The scale of the anti-doping programme we had in place in 2014 was bigger than ever before and shows our ever-growing commitment to keep this game as clean as it always has been and hopefully always will be," said FIBA secretary general and International Olympic Committee member Patrick Baumann.

In both senior Championships, FIBA divided the testing in to three phases: on-site pre-event testing, rest day testing and in-competition testing.

The FIBA's anti-doping programme has confirmed that basketball is a low-risk doping sport, officials from the world governing body claim ©Getty Images





The programme was sanctioned long before the tournaments tipped off, with FIBA including players expected to participate at the events in its registered testing pool for extensive and thorough out-of-competition testing phases, which resulted in 100 samples being collected.

The world governing body for basketball worked closely together with multiple National Anti-Doping Organisations to ensure smart and effective testing, with the majority of the bodies keen to share resources and intelligence.

This collaboration also enabled FIBA to establish ABPs for some of its top level players by collecting 80 blood and urine samples.

The testing carried out at the FIBA Under-17 World Championships helped get a better idea of the education the future stars of the game were given back in their home countries about anti-doping.

The experience of the programme will help FIBA implement the new requirements and principles of the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) World Anti-Doping Code which comes into effect on January 1 2015.

WADA is updating existing guidelines and protocols such as those relating to collection procedures, and developing a number of new guidelines based on the 2015 Code and International Standards, with the aim of helping signatories further enhance the quality of their anti-doping programmes.