By Thomas Søbirk Petersen.
The tennis world is in shock. Jannik Sinner, the men’s Number 1-ranked tennis player and winner of the two recent grand slams in tennis (the US Open 2024 and the Australian Open 2025), has received a three-month doping ban from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The ban was initiated on February 9 and will end May 4. In March 2024, Sinner twice tested positive for the prohibited steroid clostebol. The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), ruled in August 2024 that “Sinner bears no fault or negligence for the two anti-doping violations”, and they therefore did not impose any period of ineligibility for Sinner. WADA disagreed with ITIA’s decision and in September 2024 WADA lodged an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). However, the case never reached CAS, as on February 15, 2025, WADA and Sinner agreed to resolution that resulted in the three-month ban. But the real sinner in this case is not Sinner himself, it is WADA. Let me present five reasons for the moral conclusion that Sinner should not have been quarantined by WADA.
First, the reason why Sinner tested positive for clostebol was that his physiotherapist, during treatment and massage of Sinner, transferred clostebol to Sinner’s body. The physiotherapist cut his finger in early March 2024, and used an over-the-counter spray called Trofodermin to treat the cut in his finger. Unbeknownst to the physiotherapist, the spray contained clostebol. Sinner suffers from a skin condition called psoriasiform dermatitis on his feet and back, which can cause small cuts and sores. The daily massage by the physiotherapist, who had sprayed his finger with Trofodermin, was what caused the transfer of clostebol to Sinner’s body. Interviews and investigations by ITIA of Sinner, the physiotherapist and Sinner’s entourage, all confirm the description of the events. And WADA accept this version too. So, Sinner himself did not dope, nor was his physiotherapist aware that he was transferring the prohibited substance to Sinner.
Second, the amount of clostebol in Sinners’s body was extremely small – between 0.00008 mL/L and 0.00007 mL/L – and therefore had no performance enhancing effect. Sinner did not gain a competitive advantage over the other tennis players because of these traces of clostebol in his body. In addition, this negligible amount of clostebol does not cause any health problems.
Thirdly, Sinner’s ban is contrary to central parts of WADA’s own justification for why a substance should be on their prohibited list. According to WADA, a substance or method should be considered doping if it meets two of the following three criteria: 1) It has the potential to enhance or enhances sport performance; 2) It represents an actual or potential health risk to the athletes; and 3) It violates the spirit of sport. We have seen that the amount of clostebol in Sinner’s body neither enhanced or had the potential to enhance his performance, nor did it involve a health risk or a potential health risk. So, the two-out-of-three model cannot be applied in this specific case, as reason 1) and 2) are not satisfied.
Fourth, it is far from clear that the amount of clostebol detected is against the spirit of sport. According to WADA the spirit of sport reflects values such as: health, fair play, excellence in performance, fun and joy, respect for rules, teamwork, dedication and courage. However, apart from the ‘respect for rules’ value, it is difficult to see how Sinner’s case is against the spirit of sport. And even it is technically against WADA’s rules, the case of Sinner shows that the rules are clearly problematic – Sinner was not even aware that he was exposed to a banned substance, so the breach of rules was quite obviously unintentional. Further, the tiny amount found speaks in favor of the case that there should be some kind of triviality limit when it comes to determining what amount of substance can be in an athlete’s body.
Fifth, the strict liability rule enforced by WADA makes the athletes responsible for whether a stimulant on WADA’s prohibition list is found in the athletes’ body. Sinner’s case shows that this assumption is morally problematic. It does not seem fair that Sinner or any other athletes should be morally responsible for how other persons interfere with what they eat or otherwise have transferred to their body. Should an athlete be punished if a physiotherapist unintentionally transferred a microscopic trace of doping into the body of the athlete? Or should an athlete be punished if a competitor intentionally added some stimulant to the diet of an athlete to get the athlete banned from the sport? No, of course not. I hope to have demonstrated that the real sinner in this case is not Jannik Sinner but WADA.
Author: Thomas Søbirk Petersen
Affiliations: Philosophy, Roskilde University
Competing interests: None declared