"There is space for improvement," Gunter Younger, WADA’s director of Intelligence and Investigations (I&I) told insidethegames.

Asked exactly what measures he had in mind, Younger responded: "To be honest I don’t want to say at the moment.

"Because if the other knows what our strategy is they could make their assumption and it would endanger our clients.

"But we have discussed with our legal department and we are very happy to have them in this process where we say: ‘What can we do in order perhaps to protect, and not provide the identity?’

"There are some avenues, there are some possibilities.

"I think we need to go the next step of really thinking about how we can protect the identity in the result management process.   

"It is something that we suffer a little bit in our way of working with these clients."

Asked what the timeline would be on the new approaches, Younger said: "We will try to find which avenues are open.

"We want to initiate the discussion because I think all people, all our colleagues and partners who work with us, they have the same problem, or challenge.

"And in this respect it needs to be a common discussion, with everyone saying that, yes, we should definitely in the next review perhaps implement - and I have no solution yet - but perhaps implement something where we can even more protect our clients.

"We are not talking about every whistleblower.

"We are talking about those where there are security concerns.

"Of course there is always a concern, but is there a serious concern?"

Younger said that one major element in the current system employed to incentivise whistleblowers - or "confidential sources" as WADA prefers to call them - currently presents "a dilemma."

He was referring to the mechanism whereby athletes who have committed an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) can reduce their standard ban by providing information that proves useful to WADA’s I&I Department, explaining: "If an athlete gets substantial assistance then we need to publish the name and the reduced sanction of the athlete so that International Federations know if an athlete can compete or not.

"Sanctions are usually harmonised to four or eight years.

"Therefore it is clear to everyone that an athlete got substantial assistance when it deviates from the norm and if now a respondent wants to know who might have disclosed his misbehaviour then he could assume that it was an athlete with the reduced sanction.

"That is a challenge for us to protect the identity of a confidential source.

"However, we have already developed some tactical actions.

"Regardless, this area needs to be further developed to even more protect our most valuable clients - persons who want to remain confidential but to help us to create clean sport."

Younger stressed that, wherever possible, it was WADA’s policy to avoid the naming of confidential sources and to resist demands for information regarding them from outside agencies.

He cites the major case involving the orchestrated and widespread doping system that was being undertaken in Russia and came to light soon after the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

"It was requested of us by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that we provided information about our whistleblowers," Younger said.

"And we said no.

"Because it’s my responsibility, it’s not the responsibility of CAS.

"We told them: ‘No, we go so far, but no more.

"You don’t get the names of those who worked with us on this case and that’s it.

"You have to live with that."

But Younger defended WADA's ongoing efforts to have Steve Magness, who as Witness A provided information that contributed to the sanctioning of coach Alberto Salazar and Houston-based endrocrinologist Dr Jeffrey Brown for misconduct at the Nike Oregon Project, himself charged with having committed an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV).

The full interview is available in The Big Read