Children Under the Code: Protected Persons and Anti-Doping Education

Timeline

1. 2021The 2021 World Anti-Doping Code takes effect, creating the Protected Person category and Article 18 education requirements.
2. Feb 2022The Kamila Valieva case at the Beijing Olympics puts a 15-year-old Protected Person at the center of a doping dispute.

The ethical issues

• Capacity and responsibility of minors under strict liability.
• Privacy of minors versus transparency of sanctions.
• Responsibility of coaches, doctors and parents who supply drugs to minors.
• Education as prevention versus punishment.
• Different treatment of elite minors and other minors.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
Young athletes	Protection, education, fair treatment and privacy.
Parents	Their children's welfare and development.
Coaches and support staff	Performance, and their own accountability.
Anti-doping organizations	Effective prevention and fair enforcement.
Clean competitors	Fair competition, including at youth level.
Sport federations	Developing athletes safely.

The case

Young athletes are subject to the World Anti-Doping Code. They can be tested, and they are responsible for what is found in their bodies. The 2021 revision of the Code tried to address the special position of minors through two tools: a new category of “Protected Person,” and mandatory education programs.^[1] The questions these tools raise became headline news when a 15-year-old figure skater was at the center of a doping case at the 2022 Winter Olympics. (See Kamila Valieva at Beijing 2022.)

Background

The Code defines a Protected Person as an athlete or other person who, at the time of the violation, (i) has not reached age 16; (ii) has not reached age 18 and is not in any Registered Testing Pool and has never competed in an open-category international event; or (iii) for reasons other than age lacks legal capacity under national law.^[1] The Code explains the category is “based on the understanding that, below a certain age or intellectual capacity, an Athlete or other Person may not possess the mental capacity to understand and appreciate the prohibitions against conduct contained in the Code.” It gives the example of a Paralympic athlete with an intellectual impairment.^[1]

The Code separately defines a Minor as a person under 18.^[1]

The rules and governance

Sanctions. For Protected Persons, sanctions can be much lighter than for adults. Where a Protected Person shows no significant fault or negligence, the sanction ranges from “a reprimand and no period of Ineligibility” to a maximum of two years.^[1] For non-specified substances where intent is not established, Protected Persons also fall into a range between a reprimand and two years, depending on fault.^[1]

Privacy. Mandatory public disclosure of a violation does not apply to a Minor, Protected Person or Recreational Athlete. Any optional disclosure must be “proportionate to the facts and circumstances of the case.”^[1]

Adults who dope minors. The Code treats trafficking or administering prohibited substances to a Protected Person as “a particularly serious violation.” For support personnel, such violations, other than for specified substances, “shall result in lifetime Ineligibility.”^[1] The Code’s commentary says that those “involved in doping Athletes or covering up doping should be subject to sanctions which are more severe than the Athletes who test positive.”^[1] Serious violations that may also break other laws must be reported to the authorities.^[1]

Education. Article 18 says education programs are “central” to effective anti-doping, and must “raise awareness, provide accurate information and develop decision-making capability” to prevent intentional and unintentional violations.^[1] Each signatory must develop an education plan under the International Standard for Education, justify its priority groups, and publish minimum information, including the principle of strict liability, the risks of supplements, medications and therapeutic use exemptions, and how to speak up about doping.^[1] The Code’s commentary suggests risk assessments can identify priority groups for education.^[1]

The Valieva test

The Protected Person rules were tested in the case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who was 15 when a sample collected at the Russian championships on December 25, 2021, tested positive for trimetazidine. She did not contest that she had committed a violation.^[3] On January 29, 2024, CAS imposed a four-year ban starting from that date and disqualified her results since then. The panel stressed that the test for intent “is one and the same whether the athlete is an adult or a Protected Person”: a Protected Person who cannot prove the violation was unintentional is treated like an adult. Valieva could not establish that it was unintentional, so the panel found no discretion to reduce the four-year ban.^[3] In other words, the special category lightens sanctions only once intent has been disproved, a burden that falls on the athlete, child or not.^[1][3]

The 2027 revision

In December 2025, WADA’s World Conference approved a revised Code and International Standards, taking effect in 2027. WADA’s announcement said they “prioritize the human rights of athletes, especially minors and other protected persons” and “increase the responsibilities of the entourage and of Anti-Doping Organizations.”^[4] The revised education standard requires every signatory to include in its education pool “Minors competing at International Events where Testing takes place” and the parents or guardians of such minors. It endorses the principle that an athlete’s “first experience with anti-doping should be through Education rather than Doping Control, particularly for Minors.”^[5]

WADA’s own summary of the changes is careful about what did not change. “The special protections provided to Protected Persons and Recreational Athletes in the current Code have not been changed,” it says, and a new comment makes clear that special treatment applies only where the Code expressly provides it.^[6] The 2021 rule that Protected Persons, unlike adults, need not establish how a substance entered their system to claim no significant fault also remains.^[6] What the 2027 Code does is extend some protections to “Minors who are not Protected Persons,” which WADA describes as “elite 16 and 17-year-olds.”^[6] For that group, as for Protected Persons:

• trafficking, administering or complicity violations involving them are “particularly serious and may lead to longer periods of Ineligibility”;^[6]
• information about doping of Protected Persons and Minors is treated as particularly valuable substantial assistance;^[6]
• mandatory public disclosure does not apply, and any optional disclosure must consider “the best interests of the individual”;^[6]
• an anti-doping organization must investigate the athlete support personnel of any Protected Person or Minor found to have committed a violation, and support personnel must attend anti-doping education and give accurate information to the athletes they support.^[6]

Governments also commit to support education and training focused on Protected Persons and Minors.^[6] As UK Anti-Doping summarized the changes for coaches and parents, there will be “increased scrutiny of adults working with young Athletes.” It also highlighted a testing change: a parent or representative should be present when a Minor is tested and may now join by video call if unable to attend in person.^[7] The new rules take effect on January 1, 2027.^[7]

Aftermath

The Valieva case, covered separately, showed how difficult these rules are to apply to a teenage athlete. The Protected Person category has continued to be debated in scholarship, including in an article arguing that the concept is “no protection for minors.”^[2]

The core dilemma

Strict liability works by holding athletes responsible regardless of intent. Children may not fully understand the rules and often depend on adults for food, supplements and medical care. The Code softened sanctions, protected privacy and increased penalties for adults, but still holds minors to the system. How should anti-doping treat children?

Competing values

• Protection vs. responsibility: safeguarding children against holding them accountable.
• Privacy vs. transparency.
• Prevention vs. punishment: education against sanctions.
• Consistency vs. individual capacity: age-based lines against individual maturity.

Strongest arguments

For the current approach: young athletes compete against others and can gain unfair advantages. The Code recognizes their limited capacity with lighter sanctions and privacy, while severely punishing adults who dope them.

For stronger protection: if minors lack the capacity to understand the rules, strict liability should not apply to them. Responsibility should rest with the adults around them.

For more education: early, effective education is the best way to protect young athletes and reduce violations.

Applying the frameworks

Care ethics

A care lens focuses on children’s vulnerability and dependence on adults, and asks what coaches, parents, federations and anti-doping bodies owe them.

Justice

A justice lens asks whether it is fair to apply strict liability to children, and whether age-based lines treat similarly mature athletes alike.

Rights

A rights lens weighs children’s rights to protection, privacy and development against competitors’ rights to fair competition.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue. You lead a national anti-doping agency designing a youth program. Stakeholders include young athletes, parents, coaches and federations. Less visible are athletes in sports with early specialization. The codes are the World Code and the International Standard for Education.
2. Gather facts. Which youth groups are at highest risk? What do young athletes know about supplements and medications? Beware assuming that young athletes are either fully innocent or fully responsible.
3. Test options. (a) Minimal education focused on elite youth. (b) Broad education for all youth athletes and their parents and coaches. (c) Broad education plus targeted investigation of support personnel.
4. Check codes and law. Check the Code’s education requirements and national child-protection law.
5. Decide and document. Justify priority groups in your education plan.
6. Communicate and follow up. Evaluate the program and adjust it.

What’s settled and what’s contested

• Settled: the Code’s definitions, sanction ranges, privacy rules and education requirements.
• Contested: whether strict liability should apply to minors; whether the Protected Person definition draws the right lines.

Why this case matters

How sport treats its youngest athletes reveals its values. This case shows how the anti-doping system tries to balance protection and accountability for minors.

Key terms

Strict liability

The anti-doping principle that athletes are responsible for any prohibited substance in their bodies, whether or not they meant to take it.

Duty of care

The responsibility of coaches, organizations and institutions to protect the health, safety and well-being of those in their charge. It is not a license for total control.

Paternalism (hard and soft)

Restricting someone’s choices for their own good. Hard paternalism overrides competent, informed adults; soft paternalism steps in when information or autonomy is compromised.

Consent and autonomy

Whether people have agreed freely and with full information, and whether their right to make their own choices is respected.

Parental pressure

Emotional, financial or behavioral pressure from parents. The key question is when guidance becomes exploitation.

Codes and guardrails

Written rules of conduct, backed by real consequences, that turn values into expected behavior. Without enforcement they are decoration.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. The Code says young athletes 'may not possess the mental capacity to understand and appreciate' anti-doping rules. If so, should strict liability apply to them at all?
2. A 16- or 17-year-old in an elite testing pool is not a Protected Person. Is that line fair?
3. Should a young athlete's sanction depend on whether adults around them were responsible?
4. Is mandatory education enough to justify holding young athletes to the Code?

Sources

1. World Anti-Doping Code 2021 — World Anti-Doping Agency
2. WADA's Concept of the 'Protected Person' – and Why it is No Protection for Minors — Sport, Ethics and Philosophy (Taylor & Francis)
3. Kamila Valieva is found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation and sanctioned with a four-year period of ineligibility (Jan. 29, 2024) — Court of Arbitration for Sport
4. WADA World Conference on Doping in Sport concludes with approval of 2027 World Anti-Doping Code and International Standards (Dec. 2025) — World Anti-Doping Agency
5. 2027 International Standard for Education (Final Draft) — World Anti-Doping Agency
6. 2027 Code & IS Update Process: Summary of Major Changes – World Anti-Doping Code (Feb. 13, 2026) — World Anti-Doping Agency
7. Athlete Support Personnel: Supporting athletes through the 2027 Code — UK Anti-Doping