Andrea Ember from the IJF Medical Commission was overseeing the ‘IJF Clean Sport’ station in Odivelas, at the junior World Judo Championships and was happy to drape about their work. “As the IJF, we understand that our remit is not simply to facilitate the highest level of junior judo but also to continue to educate everyone involved in all aspects of high performance sport, including ethics, anti-doping, delegation behaviours and much more.
The station at the Odivelas arena is stocked with dummy doping control kits and so IJF staff have been able to show young athletes exactly how the process is managed. The rights and responsibilities of both athletes and the doping controllers have been explained while we also show them how to check the sample containers, demonstrating what to look for in order to protect themselves during anti-doping processes, from accidental contamination, for example.
There is also instruction on how to check their own medication. The first line of defence against anti-doping violations is ‘yourself’ and there are websites to help with that. They should not look at the name of a product but the substances contained within. The Globaldro.com website directs users to input athlete and sport information and also the substance names and all ingredients can be checked for permissions.
The delegations in Portugal have been really involved. There was some extra fun and motivation because we had small gifts to give to those doing well. Our stand in Odivelas induced a lot of debate and discussion among coaches and athletes. Many national teams came as whole groups and worked through all tne processes together and so the education element was respected by everyone. All were open to learning and this bodes well for the future of clean sport.”
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have developed an online tool designed to extend learning and test knowledge and it’s now available in 49 languages. It can be found here:
The WADA Play True quiz https://quiz.wada-ama.org