World Anti-Doping Agency chiefs have fired a stern warning to drug cheats after Sport Integrity Australia recorded a clean slate of tests for one of the country’s leading causes of doping violations for the first time in more than a decade.
Not a single athlete tested positive due to a supplement in Australia over the past year but Sport Integrity Australia chief David Sharpe is urging athletes to avoid complacency with an eye on the nation’s “golden decade” culminating in the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane.
The result came on the eve of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s three-day global education conference, which has seen more than 300 delegates descend on Sydney in the summit’s biggest turnout to date.
Supplements have long been among the leading causes of anti-doping rule violations in Australia, accounting for a third of positive doping tests between 2016 and 2019. Studies showed some supplements were illegal, some were contaminated during production, and others failed to list all ingredients on the packaging.
Sharpe says numbers peaked in 2016-17 when 17 athletes tested positive due to a supplement. Those figures spiralled downwards on the back of Sport Integrity Australia’s response, which saw the number of positive tests attributed to supplements drop to three in 2019-20, one in 2020-21, and none in 2021-22.
“When we look at what we call the ‘golden decade’, it’s really important we focus between now and 2032, when we have the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics, that we focus on everyone in education and we expand that to grassroots,” Sharpe said.
David Sharpe, the chief executive of Sport Integrity Australia, wants athletes to remain vigilant.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“Today’s five-year-old could be a 2032 Olympian, so we really need to focus now on that culture of change. Together it’s a strong partnership. We’re going to learn a lot over the next few days and our partnerships are going to be even stronger.
“Education is absolutely central to everything we do in Australia and sports. More importantly, with the partnerships we have with [WADA], we’re able to progress initiatives using innovation and different education in the programs.”
WADA president Witold Banka says one of the biggest challenges ahead of the global body is to ensure a level playing field given some countries have shown little appetite for anti-doping policies.
But Banka is confident drug cheats cannot fly under the radar as WADA’s testing numbers return to normality, mirroring those of the pre-pandemic era.
“We are in a completely different place than in the past. Now anti-doping is not only about the testing, we have different tools to catch the cheats,” Banka said.
“For instance, a biological passport to long-term storage of samples, intelligence and investigations. We are using all these tools against the cheats. The beginning of the pandemic of COVID was difficult for all of us when you look at the lockdown and restrictions.
“When you look at the figures of how many [out of competition] samples anti-doping organisations collect now, we have bigger figures than the pre-pandemic time. It’s not like COVID destroyed the system, the system works. We can be confident the system works.
“One of the biggest challenges ahead of us as an anti-doping committee is to make sure the system works and the rules are equal for everyone. It’s a challenge that we have countries with very weak anti-doping systems or without anti-doping systems.
“This is the biggest challenge ahead of us, to make sure the system works even in the regions where now we have problems with anti-doping policies. It’s my role to convince governments anti-doping policies are extremely important. We are doing it.”
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