Drug Free Sport NZ – A New Approach to Keeping Sport Clean

Drug Free Sport NZ has, in one form or another, been in existence since 1989. Building on foundations at the National Olympic Committee it was established by legislation as an independent National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO) in 1994 and now operates under new legislation requiring it to implement the World Anti-Doping Code.

Like all NADO’s Drug Free Sport NZ is faced with significant challenges in implementing the Code. An additional and interesting challenge has been emerging – at least judging by the results of the testing programme. Since July 2003 (WADA took responsibility for the prohibited list in 2004 adding “cannabinoids” as a mandatory class) Drug Free Sport NZ has conducted 6,237 tests. If the figures from Bodybuilding are excluded this has resulted in 36 “positive” tests, 31 of which have been for cannabis. Of the 5 remaining positives none were for the most serious anabolic agent or hormone classes despite a heavy “epo” testing regime in recent years. The simplistic response to this is that New Zealand athletes are not cheats - but are extremely relaxed.

In fact when these statistics are put alongside other indicators Drug Free Sport NZ has drawn a number of conclusions which have determined the manner in which we would like to approach our anti-doping work over the next few years.

We do not believe that there are New Zealand is free of athletes who are using prohibited substances to enhance performance and some have been caught up in testing programmes of other Anti-Doping Organisations. Nevertheless we do believe that we have a sporting culture which is predominantly clean, does not accept doping and that, if it is occurring, it will be more on an individual rather than systematic basis.

In light of this Drug Free Sport NZ has embarked on a quite radical approach which incorporates the following elements.

1. A testing programme of reduced size but much more focussed on high risk situations while retaining sufficient numbers to ensure a broad deterrent effect. We do not believe that more is necessarily better and frequently more is simply wasteful.
2. A transfer of some of those testing resources into an investigative capacity which attempts to provide better information to direct the testing programme and also to identify any other examples of anti-doping rule violations. Co-operation with other Agencies such as Customs and Police is important in this.
3. Continual improvement of a high quality information service to minimise the cases of “inadvertent” doping. (The placement of cannabis on the list has provided huge challenges to this programme as a response to a predominantly “social” habit such as cannabis use requires an entirely different approach than that for traditional performance enhancement issues.)
4. Perhaps most critically a clear focus on nurturing and fostering the sporting culture which absolutely rejects drug use and gives full support to clean athletes.

It is in this fourth category where we believe that we have developed some important and world leading initiatives. While we have looked to work with all elements of the sporting community we have focussed more and more on the next generation of athletes to help them make the “right” decisions at an early stage of their careers. These decisions should be based on sound consideration of how they want to progress and be perceived as sportspeople and made with the confidence that the sporting community will support them in making a decision to be a clean athlete.

The key challenge to all organisations endeavouring to influence decision making of young people is in finding a way to engage and interest them and convince them that the issue at hand is important and that there is a benefit in considering it.

The primary tool we have used is to do this is the recruitment of current athletes, particularly ones with high profile at the national and regional levels but frankly as many as we can, into assisting with the delivery of the programme. This is proving to be extremely successful but relies on provided appropriate methods of getting these athletes in front of the next generation of young sportspeople. Some of those methods include:

• Outreach programme – a process pioneered by WADA - in which booths providing information and activities are set up at major youth and other sporting events. These benefit greatly when well known athletes are used as a draw card.
• Utilising athletes at education seminars so that the young attendees can ask questions directly of the current athletes considerably enhancing the value of the sessions.
• Public meetings at which “on the couch” interviews are held with athletes and then members of the public are able to ask questions. The involvement of Drug Free Sport NZ in a major exhibition at the national museum provided an excellent opportunity for this type of interaction.
• Posters and educational videos utilise athletes rather than anti-doping officials to put across the message.
• A music video is currently in production and a song written with lyrics promoting clean sport will be released featuring prominent athletes.

A central plank to this part of our work is our “Pledge” programme. This has also used prominent athletes to lead it but requires each individual to commit to key responsibilities relating to anti-doping which entitles them to receive and wear a distinctive green wrist band. Peer pressure has worked for us in this initiative as young people want to be associated with the same programme as the top athletes (their names are posted on the web site alongside gold medallists) and the wrist bands have “street” credibility as they are not freely available and it is “cool” to wear them. More and more athletes appearing in nationally televised sporting events are wearing the wrist bands or specially designed tape for contact sports. The Pledge can also be taken by coaches, past athletes and anyone else wanting to commit to clean sport.

Drug Free Sport NZ has made a significant investment over the past few months in sponsoring an exhibition at the national museum Te Papa. The exhibition was entitled “The Poisoners” and was targetted at the 8-12 age group requiring them to solve a murder mystery by seeking clues throughout the displays. Drug Free Sport NZ had its own dedicated section relating to “poison” in sport - doping – and developed animated characters which could be controlled by the children and delivered key messages about drugs in sport. 160,000 people visited the exhibition with a very high recall rate of the Drug Free Sport NZ presence.

Anti-doping work has traditionally focussed on testing and rigid rules. Drug Free Sport NZ is seeking to tackle the age old problem by utilising modern approaches and taking the stand point that athletes should be assumed to be clean, until evidence shows otherwise, that they should have opportunities to have a voice and indeed be in the frontline of anti-doping work.

The answer to combating drugs in sport, in an environment such as that in New Zealand, is not through more and more layers of rules and compliance requirements. There must be controls and effective interventions available but these should not become overbearing and unreasonable on the other hand they should be able to be quickly responsive to specific indications that doping is occurring. Otherwise the answer can only be an embracing of clean sport by current and future athletes who accept that; anti-doping rules are reasonable, work to their benefit and should be supported at all costs.

 

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