A record number of whistleblowers reported suspicions of sports doping in the UK to it in 2024, UK Anti-Doping says.

Ukad’s intelligence and investigations team received 211 reports of suspected doping misconduct across 30 sports last year.

The Protect Your Sport initiative was launched in 2020 to encourage whistleblowers to report anonymously.

And the number of reports has increased year on year since then, with Ukad receiving 184 across 25 sports in 2023, and 110 in 2022.

“It’s important to Ukad that athletes and the sporting community feel safe talking to us, and that we normalise the reporting of doping in sport,” Ukad’s head of intelligence and investigations Mario Theophanous said.

“One of the main reasons that we release these reporting numbers is to show individuals who are unsure or uncertain about reporting that you’re not alone – there are others like you who want to protect the integrity of their sport.”

Ukad recently launched an anonymous SMS and WhatsApp service for reporting suspected misconduct.

“The service allows our investigators to reply to the person reporting in real time, gathering the necessary evidence we need to conduct our investigations,” Theophanous added.

“We hope to encourage other individuals who may have information but fear reporting it, to take the decisive action and raise their concerns to ‘Protect Your Sport’ anonymously.”