Published June 8, 2026 09:20AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Testing athletes for banned substances on race day isn\u2019t that difficult. Ensuring that they\u2019re clean the other 364 days of the year is another story.<\/p>\n
The trouble is that athletes only spend a tiny fraction of their lives in the arena. The rest of the time, they\u2019re moving about the world unscrutinized, living and training behind closed doors. That adds up to millions of hours of unobserved downtime. Which begs the question: How is enforcement even possible?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the question the international anti-doping industry has had to ask itself after every headlining scandal. While some groups (see: the 2026 Enhanced Games) have advocated giving up on enforcement entirely, most of the sporting world has doggedly accepted it as a reality of modern athletics.<\/p>\n
Today, the international anti-doping machine has settled on a solution that functions something like a collaborative international spy network: a global army of doping control officers (DCO).<\/p>\n
These are the people who show up at your house unannounced, in the small hours of the morning or in the moments before you crawl into bed at night. They come to your gym, walk into your living room, and show up at your kid\u2019s birthday party.<\/p>\n
Once they see you, you\u2019re not allowed to leave their sight until you provide a sample. About to sit down to dinner? Not so fast. About to officiate your brother\u2019s wedding? The DCO gets to come with. Until they\u2019ve got their test tube of blood or their cup of pee, they\u2019re not going anywhere.<\/p>\n
Not every athlete gets sampled, but the threat of constant testing is critical. After all, the real enforcement isn\u2019t about the cup or the syringe; it\u2019s about the fear.<\/p>\n
As you might expect, working as an agent of fear can be a thankless job. The DCOs I\u2019ve interviewed have been greeted at the door with loaded guns. They\u2019ve had the police called on them. They\u2019ve had to chase evasive athletes around strange cities, fly into war zones, and carry samples across borders. They\u2019re frontline workers in Palestine and Ukraine.<\/p>\n
And yet, there\u2019s no glory to it. It can be pretty awkward, and it\u2019s not incredibly well paid. But those who do this work call it more vocation than side gig. It\u2019s not about the money or even the travel. It\u2019s about being a part of something: the scaffolding of international sport, a cog in the gleaming machine. It\u2019s about watching an athlete stream tears of joy over a world record that was decades in the making\u2014and knowing that you helped prove to the world that it was real.<\/p>\n
We spoke to a lifelong DCO to find out what that really looks like behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
The Gig at a Glance<\/h2>\n
Job: <\/b>Doping control officer for the International Testing Agency (ITA)<\/p>\n
Age: <\/b>Mid-fifties<\/p>\n
Years in the Business:<\/b> 35<\/p>\n
Pay:<\/b> $40 to $80 per hour<\/p>\nWhy Did You Become a Doping Control Officer?<\/h2>\n
I was a physical therapy student in 1990, and the World Student Games were coming to town. My class was asked if anyone wanted a summer job as an \u201cindependent sampling officer.\u201d It sounded alright, so I applied.<\/p>\n
Once I started, it just kind of got under my skin. It felt like such important work. I saw so many athletes training so hard, and I wanted to do all I could to make sure those people competed on as level a playing field as I could possibly create. I became a physical therapist and then an airline pilot but always kept working in anti-doping on the side. I still do that today, and I absolutely love it.<\/p>\n
Your Day Job Is Pretty Lucrative. Why Do You Moonlight as a DCO?<\/h2>\n
I don\u2019t know many people who do this for the money. They mostly do it because seeing how international sport ticks behind the scenes is pretty impressive. You can find yourself at a major event like the Olympics or the Tour de France, and you pinch yourself. Knowing you played one small part in that\u2014it\u2019s absolutely magic.<\/p>\n
Part of Your Job Is to Arrive at Athletes\u2019 Homes Unannounced. How Do People Typically React to That?<\/h2>\n
Compared to 20 or 30 years ago, the reaction nowadays is extremely professional. Most athletes deal with testing as a little bump in the road and just take it in their stride. Other times, you might arrive on a difficult day because the athlete has so much planned. They might have a wedding to go to that day. They might be on their way to a funeral.<\/p>\n
The rule is that I can wait as long as I need to do my test. I can sit and watch you train. I can go to your event with you. I can attend your wife\u2019s doctor\u2019s appointment. As long as I can see you, I\u2019m happy. We can almost always find a way to work around the athlete\u2019s schedule.<\/p>\n
Things do get more interesting when you arrive at an athlete\u2019s home at 6 A.M. The local neighborhood is often quite aware of people sitting in their car and looking at a particular house. They don\u2019t know I\u2019m not a burglar, and I\u2019ve certainly had the police called on me.<\/p>\n
Have You Ever Had to Attend a Wedding or Funeral in Pursuit of a Sample?<\/h2>\n
I nearly had to go to a wedding. I arrived to do my test, and everyone was very smartly dressed and preparing to leave for the ceremony. Fortunately the athlete was well-hydrated and able to pee before the car needed to leave.<\/p>\n
Another time, I went to an athlete\u2019s home, and his wife told me he\u2019d gone out to dinner. She gave me directions to the restaurant, and I had to go and sit at the edge of the table at dinner with him and his friends until he was ready to give a sample. It was quite awkward.<\/p>\n
How Did You Track Athletes Down Before the Internet?<\/h2>\n
These days, there\u2019s an app and a centralized digital system, and athletes provide a one-hour slot every day when they will be available at a specified location. They can be tested at any time, but they have to be where they say they\u2019ll be during that one hour.<\/p>\n
Thirty years ago, we didn\u2019t have all that. We were just given an athlete\u2019s general whereabouts\u2014and five days to find them.<\/p>\n
Back then, my first task when I went to a new town was to buy an atlas. Sometimes I\u2019d stop and ask a local post office person because they always knew all the roads. Other DCOs would talk to pizza delivery people for the same reason.<\/p>\n
In most places, I could be pretty resourceful and find the right address. But there are some countries that don\u2019t have address systems. I remember going to Japan and being completely lost. Their system is so different that only the Japanese DCOs could find their way around.<\/p>\n
What Is the Collection Process Actually Like?<\/h2>\n
The athlete is in charge of everything. They choose their collection vessel and perform the test. We just observe and talk them through it.<\/p>\n
We go to the bathroom and the athlete washes their hands. They then expose their body from mid chest to mid thigh so there\u2019s an unobstructed view of the sample being collected. That\u2019s to make sure the sample has integrity and isn\u2019t compromised.<\/p>\n
Once the cup is full or the bladder empty, the lid goes on the cup. They can get dressed and we go back into the room to do the paperwork. We record the total volume, and then the athlete divides the sample into the bottles labeled A and B. Once the lid clicks onto those bottles, they can\u2019t be opened. My job is then to ship these to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited laboratory for testing.<\/p>\n
Is the Work as Thankless as It Sounds?<\/h2>\n
The challenge for me has always been trying to take anti-doping\u2014which is a very procedural, technical, boring, irritating job\u2014and try to make it as athlete-friendly as possible. I want to comply with the rules so that the athlete leaves feeling that the test was done properly and we all did the best we could.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not police officers. We\u2019re not trying to catch people out; we\u2019re trying to give the athletes the opportunity to prove that they compete clean.<\/p>\n
Are Some Athletes More Difficult than Others?<\/h2>\n
Cycling has always been very professional. Anti-doping is absolutely integrated in their field of normal. Cyclists also tend to be very hydrated so they pee very quickly\u2014usually it\u2019s 10 or 15 minutes in and out.<\/p>\n
Some sports are more challenging because they\u2019re weight-limited. Jockeys, judo players, and weight lifters who\u2019ve got specific weight targets don\u2019t want to drink anything because they don\u2019t want to be too heavy. So that gets interesting.<\/p>\n
What Are the Moments That Make It All Worth It?<\/h2>\n
I remember being at Super Saturday at the Olympics in London [when Team Great Britain won three gold medals in Track and Field in 44 minutes]. As a DCO, you\u2019re right on the field, behind the main bench, next to the action. DCOs will say you cannot buy a ticket for the seats you get with this job. The roar in that stadium was spine-tingling.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been to two Olympic Games and a number of Commonwealth Games, and it\u2019s a privilege to be at every one. It\u2019s absolutely amazing.<\/p>\n