Doping and the Record Book: Annulments, Retests and Asterisks

A record list should be a statement of fact: this athlete achieved this mark on this day. Doping complicates that, because a performance that is later shown to have been aided by prohibited substances stops being a clean fact. Governing bodies, anti-doping agencies and sports arbitration courts have developed procedures for dealing with this, and they affect rankings in ways that are not obvious from a table. This guide describes how the process works, the best-known cases, and the approach we take.

Three ways a performance can leave the record list

1. A positive test at the event

The simplest case is a positive sample provided after the performance. In the most famous example, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson won the 100 m at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul in 9.79 seconds and was stripped of his medal and record after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid, only days after the race. The gold medal was reassigned to Carl Lewis, and the record was removed. The speed of the response showed that the system could work, and the scandal made anti-doping a central issue for the sport.

2. Retrospective testing

Samples can be stored and tested again later with improved methods. The International Olympic Committee and some federations hold samples for ten years. Re-analyses of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games led to a large number of sanctions, with medals reallocated years after the ceremonies. One consequence is that a medal table can change, which is why we label each of our Olympic rankings with a verification date and a note that results may still be amended.

3. Evidence from investigations

Some athletes are sanctioned on the basis of investigations rather than a positive test, with evidence such as documents, testimony or analysis of biological passport data. Sanctions of this kind have led to results being annulled from a certain date onwards, which can remove several years of an athlete's performances at once. Team results can also be affected. In the 2008 Beijing 4x100 m relay, the Jamaican team's gold medal was annulled in 2017 after a team member's stored sample tested positive on re-analysis, which reduced Usain Bolt's total of Olympic gold medals from nine to eight.

What happens to the record

When a mark is annulled, the usual practice is that the record list reverts to the previous holder, or the next best ratified mark is promoted. In an Olympic final, medals are redistributed to the athletes who finished behind the sanctioned one, though in practice some athletes receive their medals in a ceremony long after the Games. The records on our pages reflect the current official list at the date we verified them, and where there has been an annulment we say so in the notes.

There is also a different kind of question, which concerns records that have not been annulled but are widely regarded with suspicion. In some events, especially women's middle-distance running and throws from the 1980s, the official list still includes marks from a period of documented state-sponsored doping in some countries. No individual sanction has been applied for many of them, so by the rules they stand. We do not make accusations about specific athletes. We state what the official list says and, where the history is documented, we note the era so that readers can weigh the mark themselves. This is part of why our guide on why some records last for decades treats the 1980s separately.

The effect on medal counts and career totals

For the rankings of Olympic medals, annulments can have knock-on effects. A medal removed from one athlete is given to another, and the totals in the table change. A career medal count depends on the date of verification, which is why we show the date prominently. If you are using one of these lists for a school project, a newspaper article or any other purpose, check that you are using the most recent version.

How this site handles it

• We follow the official list. We do not remove or add performances on our own judgment. The governing body ratifies, and we cite.
• We note annulments. Where a mark or medal has been removed, the ranking and its article should say so.
• We separate fact from suspicion. A mark under discussion is described as such, without speculation about individuals.
• We log changes. When a ranking is amended because of a sanction, we record it on our corrections page.

Why it matters beyond sport

Record books serve as a shared memory of what humans have achieved. If they are filled with marks that people believe to be tainted, they lose value for athletes and for fans. This is why federations have debated measures such as resetting records at a given date, creating separate lists for marks set under modern testing, or setting a time limit for challenging a mark. None of these has been adopted universally, and they involve difficult trade-offs between fairness to the athletes of the past and credibility for today's.

For the technical details of ratification, see How a World Record Becomes Official, and for our wider standards see the editorial policy.