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The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) processed 204 Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) applications from Russian athletes in 2025, continuing a steady year-over-year increase. The figure is up from 141 in 2024, 117 in 2023 and 78 in 2022.
The upward trend is not unique to Russia, but the country continues to report among the highest TUE application volumes.
According to the Russian state news agency TASS, Russian athletes had submitted 101 TUE applications by June 2026. Of those, 79 had been approved.
A Therapeutic Use Exemption permits an athlete to use a substance or method prohibited under the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Prohibited List when there is a legitimate medical necessity. The exemption process is intended to ensure athletes with genuine health conditions are not unfairly prevented from competing.
An increase in TUE applications should not be interpreted as evidence of increased doping. Nonetheless, the sustained rise warrants attention, particularly given Russia’s anti-doping history.
In 2015, Russia was suspended following revelations of a state-sponsored doping program. More recently, broader sanctions affecting Russian participation in international sport were imposed following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. While some restrictions have since been eased by international sporting bodies, World Athletics has maintained its exclusion of Russian athletes. President Sebastian Coe has repeatedly defended the federation’s decision, despite the International Olympic Committee adopting a more permissive approach toward the participation of individual neutral athletes.
Greater transparency surrounding TUEs has become a priority for anti-doping authorities. On March 17, the International Testing Agency (ITA), which administers integrity programmes for numerous international sports federations, launched its first public TUE dashboard.
The dashboard shows that, over the previous seven years, the ITA received 3,528 TUE applications. Of those, 2,361 were approved, 903 were withdrawn or deemed unnecessary, 75 were rejected, and 186 remained under review.
Users can examine application trends over time, approval rates and distributions by sport and prohibited substance category. The ITA has consistently maintained that there is no scientific evidence demonstrating that a properly approved TUE confers a competitive advantage. The agency processed approximately 650 TUE applications in 2023, a figure that increased to roughly 850 by 2025.
