In the battle against drug use at the Paris Olympics, the ITA aims to become more agile in its quest for fairer and cleaner sport. Benjamin Cohen, ITA’s Director General, stated that potential tools at their disposal include biological and performance passports, as well as a vast amount of other data on athletes, all aimed at detecting cheats seeking to gain an edge through banned substances.

Advanced software, potentially incorporating artificial intelligence, could also prove useful; an investigative unit supported by whistleblowers has been making progress; and closer cooperation with sports bodies and police is yielding positive results.

Founded in 2018, the ITA not only oversees the anti-doping programme for the Olympics but also for the Tour de France and more than 65 international organisations.

The challenge was to refine the "risk analysis" and identify athletes to monitor using the least amount of time and resources possible, said Cohen, a Swiss lawyer who has led the agency since its inception six years ago.

The problem is exacerbated in the lead-up to the Paris Games. "We still have 30,000 potentially qualified athletes and cannot wait for the final list to focus on the 11,000 participants," Cohen said.

"Some doping practices allow athletes to achieve results very quickly," he noted. "Traditionally, the pre-Olympic period is a high-risk time... the last moment to make a difference. Athletes know they will be closely monitored at the Olympics, so I hope very few, if any, will be tempted to use drugs in the Olympic Village." At the Games, only medallists are automatically tested, but the ITA seeks to find ways to identify potential dopers.

Cohen said the ITA aims to identify patterns. They look at the demands of each discipline and the substances that might tempt athletes. Then, the ITA examines delegations and "the history of doping in that country". Finally, each athlete is scrutinised individually, including "the development of their performances, any suspicious biological passport profiles, suspicious anti-doping tests, and so on."

The goal is to prevent athletes from using banned substances in the lead-up, as they can gain advantages in preparation and fine-tuning for competition, rather than just counteracting their use during events.

"Today, we have our own software, and the next stage" will involve "programming computers to extract this data, as we still do much of this work manually." In the future, artificial intelligence will be incorporated, Cohen confirmed. "AI will allow us to advance much further in risk analysis and prediction."

"Artificial intelligence will enable us to say: 'this is really an unusual result, which could suggest doping'," he said. "It could help us flag them."

The ITA is developing a "performance passport" as a counterpart to the already established biological passport, Cohen confirmed. The aim is to "predict results based on what an athlete has done over the past four years."

The performance passport project has already been tested in some sports like swimming and weightlifting. The latter, along with athletics, is one of the sports most controversial due to a high number of positive doping tests at the Olympics.

Gradually, sports are recognising the benefits of gathering information, having anonymous sources, and promoting whistleblowers. "It’s a new method that complements traditional testing," said Cohen.

Moreover, Cohen views the cooperation between the ITA and various law enforcement agencies positively.Indeed, "this has borne fruit," he said, referring to the case of 23-year-old Italian cyclist Andrea Piccolo, arrested on June 21 by the Italian Carabinieri for returning to the country with growth hormones.

"The ITA asked the Italian authorities to open his luggage, which would not have been possible six years ago," said Cohen, noting how all sectors are uniting in the fight against cheating in sport.

"We conduct the checks, monitor these athletes' performances, know the networks, the involved doctors, and the drugs they are taking. And they can seize and open suitcases and enter hotel rooms," concluded the Swiss.