Wasn’t there a recent case that anti-doping ‘whereabouts requirements’ breached an athlete’s human rights?

No, the reverse. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in January 2018 that the ‘whereabouts requirements’ of the French Anti-Doping Agency did not restrict athletes’ right to freedom of movement or right to respect of private and family life. The whereabouts requirements state that certain sports professionals in a ‘target group’ (designated by the French Anti-Doping Agency) must file quarterly information on their whereabouts and provide a one hour period each day during which they would be available for unannounced anti-doping testing. The purpose of these requirements was to overcome the brief time frame.

The FNASS – an association representing a number of sports unions and associations in France, 99 professional sports players and Jeannie Longo (a French cyclist) – who brought the claim had also been unsuccessful in earlier challenges in the French courts. This judgment was welcomed by national and international bodies leading the fight against doping. A fight that the ECHR described as a ‘scourge, particularly prevalent in high-level competitions’.