WADA focuses on youth

WADA focuses on youth

Anti-Doping Norway hosted WADA’s Think Tank seminar at the end of June. A press conference took place after the seminar. Here are a few comments from WADA’s President John Fahey:

Education and youth
The Education of young people is important. We need to use all the means we have in the fight against doping. This means that we need to be more conspicuous where the young people are and hang out. This includes internet, facebook and twitter. We are now working on a strategy to achieve this.

Biological Passport
In many sports, there is a desire to implement the biological passport. We wish we could have implemented it earlier, but at the same time, it is important that the programme is well designed and reliable, instead of rushing it.

Cycling
While the fight against doping in cycling might not have been strong enough earlier, it appears that a genuine anti-doping effort is being made in that sport today.

Whereabouts information
Yes, the system has been criticized, but that is also due to a lack of knowledge and history on why we need to have this system in place. To the people criticizing the system, I would like to say the following: give it a chance! We will obviously evaluate the system and make the adjustments needed to improve it, as time goes. Taking away the whereabouts system is giving the possibility to the cheats to escape. For sport, and all the clean athletes, having to relate to the whereabouts system is a small sacrifice. Not the least, the fact that an athlete knows that someone can knock on the door at almost any time, can act as deterrent.