Two years of ineligibility can mean two different things depending on one clause. Article 10.13.2 of the World Anti-Doping Code decides whether the months an athlete has already spent out of competition, waiting for a hearing, come off the final sanction — and it attaches conditions that are easy to fail by accident.
The rule
A period of provisional suspension, whether imposed or voluntarily accepted, is credited against the total period of ineligibility ultimately imposed. The credit is not a discretionary reduction for good conduct; it is an accounting rule, and it applies without the athlete having to argue for it.
The two conditions
- The suspension must have been respected. If the athlete competed during the provisional suspension, no credit is given for that period at all. Not a reduced credit — none.
- Credit runs only from the effective date. Time before the provisional suspension took effect does not count, however long the case took to get started and however completely the athlete stayed out of competition during it.
Why the second condition is the expensive one
An athlete who stops competing the moment a sample is reported, but whose provisional suspension is formally imposed three months later, has three uncredited months. The remedy exists and is procedural: a voluntarily accepted provisional suspension, notified in writing in the form the rules require, has an effective date from which credit runs. Stopping quietly is not the same as accepting a provisional suspension, and the difference is measured in months of career.
Where this intersects with the rest of the Code
The distinction between the interim measure and the final sanction — what each one is, and what each one does to a result already achieved — is set out in Provisional suspension is not ineligibility. A whereabouts case under article 2.4, described in the entry on the twelve-month window, often runs long enough for this clause to decide the real length of the ban. From 1 January 2027 the whole sanctioning chapter is read from the Code approved on 5 December 2025, as set out in the entry on the 2027 Code.
The reading to take away
A provisional suspension is a cost that can be converted into credit, and the conversion depends on paperwork and on dates, not on merit. Anyone summarising a sanction as a single number of years without saying whether credit was given is quoting a figure that does not describe the athlete's calendar.
Where this is written: article 10.13.2 of the World Anti-Doping Code, wada-ama.org/en/resources.