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Anti-doping

Anti-doping: who runs the FIE's programme and how testing is organised.

Testing at FIE competitions follows WADA's International Standard for Testing and Investigations, with the FIE as the authority that manages results and the International Testing Agency delivering the programme. This page sets out the structure as the FIE's rules and instructions describe it. It covers how the system is organised, not individual cases.

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This page explains what governing bodies, standards bodies and researchers publish. It is not a substitute for lessons from a qualified coach, for a qualified armourer's checks or for medical advice.

Structure, not cases or advice

This page describes how the FIE's anti-doping system is organised, as its documents state it. It names no individual cases, and it is not advice on medicines, supplements or therapeutic use exemptions: those questions go to a doctor and to the athlete's own anti-doping organisation.

Who does what

RoleWho holds itSource
Delivering the FIE's programmeThe International Testing Agency (ITA), which stated on 9 February 2024 that it delivers an independent anti-doping programme for the FIEITA statement, 9 February 2024
Results managementThe FIE, named as the Results Management Authority on the doping control formFIE Anti-Doping Operational Instructions, 2025
Collecting samplesNormally the national anti-doping organisationFIE Anti-Doping Operational Instructions, 2025
Testing standardThe WADA International Standard for Testing and Investigations, plus the FIE's own specific rulesFIE Anti-Doping Operational Instructions, 2025
Oversight at a competitionThe FIE medical delegates, who supervise anti-doping control (o.21)FIE Organisation Rules, December 2025

Completed forms go to an FIE anti-doping address on the ITA's own domain, according to the 2025 instructions. The date on which the ITA took over delivery from the earlier arrangement was not found in an FIE or ITA document.

The FIE Anti-Doping Officer at each level of event

The 2025 instructions name who acts as the FIE Anti-Doping Officer at a competition:

  • At World Championships: the FIE Medical Commission delegate.
  • At zonal championships: the zonal confederation's medical or anti-doping delegate.
  • At World Cups and Grands Prix: the FIE Supervisor.
  • Where there is no supervisor: a designated member of the Directoire Technique.

Among the officer's duties, the same instructions list considering possible safeguarding issues.

Testing at competitions

  • A World Cup criterion. Among the criteria a competition must meet to be classed or kept as a World Cup, the Organisation Rules require an anti-doping test that conforms to the FIE regulations (o.4.10, December 2025 edition, referring to o.107 and the FIE Anti-Doping Rules). The August 2026 edition lists the same World Cup criteria (o.4.3 to o.4.10), including the anti-doping test (o.4.10).
  • By weapon and sex. The 2025 instructions set in-competition testing at World Championships, World Cups, Grands Prix and zonal championships separately for each weapon and each sex. For example, two fencers per event are tested at Senior and Junior World Championships, World Cups and Grands Prix, and one per event at satellite tournaments.
  • Education. The FIE announced on 27 June 2025 a Clean Sport and Anti-Doping webinar run with the ITA on 9 July 2025, ahead of the 2025 World Championships in Tbilisi, covering topics including therapeutic use exemptions and registered testing pool requirements.

Minors

  • A participant in an official FIE competition who is under the age of majority in the host country must be accompanied by a parent, guardian or validly delegated person able to act for them on health matters and doping control, or must have given that power to an adult present at the competition (o.29.4).
  • Appendix D of the 2025 instructions sets adjustments for doping control of minors, such as offering an adult representative, and notes that the age that defines a minor is set by the sport, or by national law where the federation's rules do not define it.
  • The FIE's minimum age for its competitions is 13 (o.29.1); the full youth rules are on youth rules.

How the structure looked in 2017

The FIE Medical Commission's minutes of 30 June 2017 describe the earlier arrangement. The FIE then had an Anti-Doping sub-commission inside the Medical Commission with a mainly educational role, and SportAccord provided services under contract: whereabouts management in the ADAMS system for a registered testing pool of 24 fencers in 2017 (the top four in each of the six individual events) and results management for FIE tests. The minutes also record that the FIE had brought in the steroidal module of the athlete biological passport but not the haematological module. The FIE's About page lists an Anti-doping sub-committee among its bodies.

Beyond the FIE

The FIE's qualification system for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games refers to the World Anti-Doping Code among its eligibility conditions, alongside the Olympic Charter and the FIE's minimum age. National and domestic anti-doping programmes were not part of the research for this page, and individual cases were deliberately left out.

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