WADA 2026: Testing Volume Rose, But the Curve Is Slowing

For three consecutive years, the rate of adverse analytical findings (AAF) across the global anti-doping system has barely moved: 0.77% in 2026, 0.80% in 2026, 0.78% in 2026. A range of just 0.03 percentage points. To anyone who works with data, a flat line like that is not bad news. It is a rare signal: an indicator stable enough to serve as a benchmark, rather than being discarded as noise. At the other end of the report sits a different number: total global testing volume rose from 288,865 samples in 2026 to 297,965 samples in 2026, an increase of roughly 9,100 samples. Both figures appear in the 2026 Annual Report published by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Only when placed side by side do they reveal what matters: volume is still rising, but the momentum has cooled noticeably. From 2026 to 2026, sample volume grew 12.5%. From 2026 to 2026, growth was just 3.2%. This is a front-loaded curve, steep at first and tapering thereafter. The headline about WADA increasing sample testing is not literally wrong, but it hides the actual shape of the curve. I once treated models as scripture. Now they are only a compass — yet without one, we are lost. This report is not the story of a swim meet or an Olympic cycle. It is a governance report. A global rule-setting body recounts its year through four categories of data: testing, finance, compliance and investigations. No athlete names, no competitive content, no lane-by-lane technical metrics. That is precisely why its value to swimming is contextual and regulatory, not performance-related. The testing data are presented as a continuous series from 2026 to 2026. For an analyst, a seven-year series is the minimum threshold for separating a trend from short-term fluctuation. It is also why I always state sample size and time frame in my work: a number detached from its time window automatically becomes half a truth. Across those seven years, the detection rate has stayed broadly flat while testing volume climbed like a staircase and then stalled. The compliance section contains two opposing faces. The bright side: average non-conformities per audit fell from 25.5 to 20. The dark side: testing-related non-conformities account for 45% of all findings, up 11% year on year, with 23% classified as critical. In other words, national anti-doping organisations are fixing their paperwork while the sample-collection layer — the backbone of the entire system — is deteriorating. One thing must be said plainly about the evidence base: the improvement from 25.5 to 20 is drawn from just nine audits. Nine. With a sample that small, another audit season could reverse the conclusion entirely. This is the kind of error I have encountered many times in forecasting: someone takes a small sample, sees a flattering number, and calls it a trend. Sample size must be stated before any change is called an improvement. By contrast, the testing-related findings rest on a far broader base and so carry far more weight. A 45% share and an 11% year-on-year increase are too large to be explained away as luck. Based on my experience tracking WADA annual reports since 2026, I have noticed that these non-conformities tend to concentrate in under-resourced organisations, where sample-collection staff are both scarce and wearing several hats. That is an inference, not raw data, so I file it as a hypothesis to be tested in the next report. Money is the loudest part of the report. WADA recorded a budget shortfall of 8.3 million USD. Two major contributors stand outside the cash flow: the United States has withheld 3.8 million USD, and Russia owes 3.9 million USD. A body that sets the rules for the entire global sporting system is being left unpaid by its largest members. That is the political core of the whole report, even though the document presents it in a very dry tone. The subtlety lies in the fact that WADA still closed the year with a net surplus of 1.2 million USD. A surplus and a budget shortfall coexist in a single report. For anyone who reads financial data, that coexistence usually carries only one meaning: costs have been cut, or part of the spending plan has been deferred to a later period. For an organisation whose core product is testing capacity, deferring spending means deferring capability. The surplus here is not a sign of health; it may be a sign of belt-tightening. While the testing side stalls, the investigations arm looks bright. More than 250 investigative operations were launched, 88 laboratories were dismantled, and over 90 tonnes of substances were seized. This signals a strategic pivot: from the traditional testing model toward investigation and prevention. That direction is more effective at deterrence because it targets supply networks rather than isolated individuals. But it also raises a resource-allocation question the report does not answer. If money and personnel drift toward investigations, what happens to routine testing frequency in lower-risk sports? Swimming sits in that category. Swimming has a particular trait: each athlete competes across multiple events and distances, spread across nearly the entire year, so the demand for out-of-competition testing is enormous. If resources are redirected into investigations, the first thing cut is usually the test that produces nothing remarkable — which is also the largest and least visible part of the system. On the athlete side, WADA and the Athlete Council ran a consultation with more than 600 athletes and commissions, spanning over 60 countries and more than 70 sports. This is a commendable legitimacy-building step. But the report does not show that this voice changed any specific provision of the code. The number of participants is not the same as the degree of influence. That is the largest data gap in this section. The 2027 World Anti-Doping Code was adopted in Busan, South Korea, and takes effect on January 1, 2027. That is a milestone with a specific date — the single most valuable item in the entire report for any federation. Between today and that date lies a window of nearly two years during which the old code remains the de facto rule. That window creates a grey zone of behaviour: organisations may not rush to change before the deadline arrives. For Vietnamese swimming, this story is contextual. In a country with a developing swimming base, testing resources depend largely on the national anti-doping organisation and on out-of-competition test allocations granted by international federations. When system-wide testing capacity tightens, smaller and less-funded federations are usually the first to feel it, specifically through a decline in out-of-competition tests. That affects competitive fairness directly, not merely the reputation of an institution. Read only the headline and you would believe the system is expanding. The data inside tell a different story: slowing expansion, a flat detection rate, a deteriorating collection layer, and unpaid bills. It is not a disastrous picture, but it is not an unqualified victory either. Numbers do not lie, but people always find ways to lie about numbers. There is a technical detail readers easily miss: the report is labelled 2026, but the testing data belong to 2026 and 2026. An annual report published with a one-year lag is normal in statistics. But for data users, logging the data year clearly is mandatory, because confusing the publication year with the activity year leads to wrong trend conclusions. I have seen forecasting models collapse over nothing more than this kind of labelling error. There is one more thing the data cannot say on their own. Rising testing volume alongside a flat detection rate can mean two entirely different things: the underlying prevalence of doping in sport is genuinely stable, or the system is targeting better, so more samples are collected while the positivity rate stays the same. The report contains no data capable of separating these two possibilities. This is where the irrationality of football and the irrationality of anti-doping meet: the model is not wrong, it is simply that reality refuses to split into independent variables for us to measure. Four signals are worth tracking in the next cycle. First, whether the growth rate of testing volume reaches zero. Second, whether the AAF rate breaks above 0.85%. Third, whether the share of testing-related non-conformities continues past 45%. Fourth, whether the contribution arrears of major states are settled before 2027. Together, these four indicators will show whether the system is genuinely tightening or merely shifting its axis. Reputation is only a name. What remains is always how you read the match.