According to its board member Lars Mortsiefer, the National Anti-Doping Agency Germany (Nada) also benefits from anonymous whistleblowers when it comes to uncovering doping offences.
“To date we have received around 240 actual reports.
If you extrapolate that over seven years, that's an average of around 30 to 40 reports per year.
Every single report was valuable, every single one contributed to the fact that investigations were started," said Mortsiefer of the "Augsburger Allgemeine".
Since 2015, Nada's website has provided anonymous information on possible doping offenses in the event of suspicion.
The hit rate for positive doping samples is significantly higher due to the information, said Mortsiefer.
“In 2019 we drew a first conclusion.
There were around ten percent positive samples that we were able to determine based on information from target controls.
If you compare that with the rate without any indications - in 2019 it was around 0.06 percent - that's a significant result," he emphasized.
He could only guess who the whistleblowers were.
"I would say it's often athletes or people close to athletes.
Possibly also people interested in sports who are in the observer position.
In any case, it's people who have the feeling that something is wrong," said Mortsiefer.