WPF has named who collected the European Open samples, where they are being analysed and which rules applied. It has not said who was tested, who hears appeals or who pays.
The short answer: The World Pickleball Federation (WPF) has answered a batch of questions about its first anti-doping tests, carried out at the European Open in Türkiye on Thursday 5 November. It has now named the sample collector (IDTM/Drug Free Sport International), said where the samples are going (the WADA-accredited laboratory in Stockholm) and settled which rulebook applied (its initial rules, in force from 1 October 2026). That is real progress. Still unanswered: which category was tested, how many players, who would hear an appeal, how the programme is paid for, and whether anyone else would recognise a ban.
The answers arrived by email on Friday morning, signed simply “WPF”. Eight questions, eight replies, and a closing line that the European Open “represents an important milestone for international pickleball”.
It does. But milestones are measured from somewhere, so let me measure.
On 3 November we sent WPF’s President, Kim Wagner, nine questions, copied to the European Pickleball Federation (EPF). On Thursday, the morning testing began at Ali Bey Club Manavgat, we published what would make the tests count. Three things topped that list: say which rules apply, name who collects, name who analyses. WPF has now done all three.
Here is what it said, what it did not say, and why the second list matters as much as the first.
Which rules governed the tests?
This was our first question, because everything else depends on it. WPF’s Integrity page said its rules took effect on 1 October 2026. Its anti-doping page, and the cover of the 67-page rulebook, said 1 January 2027. The tests fell in the 92 days between.
WPF’s answer is clean. It “adopted its initial Anti-Doping Rules effective October 1, 2026. These rules govern the testing conducted at the European Open.” A revised version takes effect on 1 January 2027, and “the two versions are separate, and the January rules do not apply retroactively to this competition.”
Good. If a sample from Manavgat ever leads to a case, a hearing panel knows which book to open.
There is a catch, and it is a small one. When we checked WPF’s website on Friday morning, both pages still showed their different dates. The Integrity page still says “taking effect 1 October 2026”. The anti-doping page still says “taking effect 1 January 2027”, and the only rulebook it offers for download is labelled “Anti-Doping Rules (2027)”. We could not find the October rules on either page. WPF’s news page has not been updated since the joint announcement of 21 October.
So the answer exists. It is in an email to us, rather than on the page an athlete would actually read. The second half of our first question, when the published information will be updated, was not addressed.
Who collected the samples?
WPF says sample collection “was administered by IDTM/Drug Free Sport International, an experienced independent anti-doping service provider”, following procedures “designed to protect sample integrity, maintain chain of custody, and safeguard athlete rights.”
Until Friday, the collector was simply “an independent professional provider”. Now it has a name, and a name can be checked. IDTM’s own website describes in- and out-of-competition testing “around the world”, and carries endorsements from the Athletics Integrity Unit and the World Curling Federation. This is a commercial operator that works for Olympic sports, not a friend of the federation with a clipboard.
That was the weakest link in the chain a week ago. It is not now.
Where are the samples going?
“All collected samples are being sent to the WADA accredited anti-doping laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden, for analysis.”
WPF did not give the laboratory’s name. WADA’s list of accredited laboratories has one entry in Stockholm: the Doping Control Laboratory at Karolinska University Hospital. We are reporting that as the laboratory WADA lists in the city, not as something WPF told us.
In our curtain-raiser we noted that Türkiye has its own accredited laboratory in Ankara, and made no assumption about which would be used. Stockholm it is. Samples from a European event, run by a world federation, collected by an international provider, analysed in Sweden under international laboratory standards. Whatever else you think of pickleball’s governance, that is a properly international chain of custody.
What were players told?
Here WPF gives more than it did before. Athletes in the designated category “received advance notification of the WPF Anti-Doping Program, were provided access to the applicable rules and educational materials and affirmatively agreed to participate.” Those selected “completed and signed the required consent documentation prior to sample collection.”
On education, WPF and EPF provided resources on prohibited substances, testing, therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) and athlete rights, and “an in-person educational presentation was also incorporated into the European Open”.
On medication, which was our biggest practical worry for amateur players, WPF says athletes were given information on prohibited substances and TUEs before the competition, and that its procedures include “retroactive applications where permitted under the applicable rules.”
That matters. WPF’s published TUE guidance asks for applications at least 30 days before an event for substances banned only in competition. The public announcement came 15 days before testing. A retroactive route is the safety valve for the player with an asthma inhaler and a 9am match. WPF says the valve exists.
What it did not say is precisely what we asked. Where can athletes find that guidance publicly? And was the education compulsory, or was the presentation simply available to those who turned up? “Incorporated into the European Open” could mean either.
Who was tested, and how many?
This is the biggest gap, and it is the easiest to close.
We asked which category was designated and roughly how many athletes might be tested. WPF’s answer on selection is that it “was conducted in accordance with the WPF Anti-Doping Program”, that testing is done “on selected athletes rather than necessarily every participant”, and that athletes knew in advance they could be selected.
All true, and all general. We still do not know whether the category was the pro division, an age group or something else. We do not know whether two players were tested or twenty. We do not know whether selection was by finishing position, by random draw or by target.
Nobody is asking WPF to name the players. Anti-doping programmes do not do that, and should not. But publishing the category and the number of samples collected is routine elsewhere, and it is the only way an outsider can tell a programme from a photo opportunity. One number would do it.
Who decides, and who hears the appeal?
WPF says it “is the designated results management authority under its Anti-Doping Rules”, which covers reviewing laboratory findings, notifying athletes and running the disciplinary process. It repeats, as it has before, that it is not a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code, but has “established its WADA aligned anti-doping framework”.
That candour is welcome. It is also not quite what we asked.
WPF’s own anti-doping page promises “independent results management”, twice. Our question was whether that means an outside body, or WPF’s own Disciplinary Commission. The rulebook we read for Thursday’s piece describes a commission with an independent chair and independent members, with the option to send cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s Anti-Doping Division, and appeals to CAS. But that is the 2027 rulebook, and WPF has now told us the 2027 rules do not apply to these tests.
So the question sharpens rather than goes away. Under the October rules, who sits on the panel, and where would a player appeal? Friday’s answers do not say. An athlete facing a positive test would want to know before the letter arrives, not after.
One-off, or a programme?
“No,” says WPF. The European Open “represents the initial implementation of WPF’s broader anti-doping program”, and WPF “intends to continue developing its testing, education, and results management capabilities”.
That echoes Ms Wagner’s clarification published on 3 November, when she described the event as “an important first step” rather than “a once-off testing exercise”. We took her at her word then, and we do now.
But intent is not a calendar. We asked how the programme is funded and whether there is a 2027 testing schedule. Neither was answered. Collection by an international provider and analysis in a WADA laboratory cost real money, per sample. A programme that is paid for event by event, by goodwill, tends to last as long as the goodwill.
Would anyone else recognise a ban?
This was our eighth question, and it was not answered either.
It matters more in pickleball than in most sports. As we set out on Thursday, the Global Pickleball Federation (GPF) has gone a different way, describing itself as a partner of the International Testing Agency. Two clean-sport programmes are better than none. Two that do not recognise each other’s sanctions leave a door open: a player banned under one system could, in principle, keep playing under the other.
WADA Code signatory status is the usual answer to that problem, because signatories recognise each other’s decisions. WPF says it is not one yet, and its Integrity page describes signatory status as something that “follows separately as part of WPF’s pathway toward IOC recognition”. There is no timetable, and Friday’s answers did not offer one.
The scorecard
Count it up against our nine questions.
Answered: which rules applied (1), who collected (2), which laboratory and whether it is accredited (3). WPF also answered more than we asked on athlete consent, education and retroactive TUEs.
Partly answered: results management (5), where WPF named itself but not the panel or the appeal route; education (6), where the content is clear but public access and compulsion are not.
Unanswered: the category and numbers (4), funding and a 2027 calendar (7), signatory roadmap and mutual recognition (8), and when the website will catch up (the second half of 1).
That is three out of nine fully settled, two in part, and four open. For a federation running its first test, three days after we sent our questions, that is a respectable return. It is not the finished article, and WPF itself says as much: “establishing an anti-doping program requires careful planning, transparency, and continued development.”
What comes next
The samples are on their way to Stockholm. Results will take weeks, and if WPF follows standard practice we will hear nothing unless something is found.
So the next test of the programme is not in the laboratory. It is on WPF’s website. Publish the October rules alongside the 2027 book. Fix the dates. Say which category was tested and how many samples were taken. Name the panel and the appeal route. Put the next tested event in the diary.
None of that costs much, and WPF has already done the harder part. It has a collector with a name, a laboratory with an address and a rulebook with a date.
The tests on Thursday were the start. The paperwork is how we will know it was not the finish.
Photo: European Pickleball Federation.
