Kuwait City, Kuwait, September 11, 2023: The Olympic Council of Asia held a webinar on the Prevention of Doping for Athlete Support Personnel at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China on Monday.
With just 12 days to go to the opening ceremony on September 23, more than 200 coaches, managers and physiotherapists -Athlete Support Personnel - from Asia's 45 National Olympic Committees joined the informative online seminar.
The webinar was conducted by OCA Anti-Doping Committee members Mr. Gobinathan Nair, who is also Director General of the Southeast Asia Regional Anti-Doping Organisation (SEARDO), and Ms. Venera Abdulla, Director with the Central Asia Regional Anti-Doping Organisation (RADOCA).
The objectives of the webinar were to ensure ASP have a good understanding on the various aspects of anti-doping; to ensure ASP tell their athletes to be good ambassadors for clean sport; and to encourage ASP to complete a structured programme in anti-doping.
In his presentation, Nair divulged that doping methods were becoming more widespread with various methods being used.
“At the 2014 Asian Games, performance enhancing drugs were either anabolic steroids or stimulants. Four years later, at the 2018 Asian Games, there were more categories of these drugs with the top six being anabolic steroids (50 per cent), hormones and metabolic modulators (19 per cent), diuretics and masking agents (13 per cent), and the rest being equally split between peptide hormones, stimulants and glucocorticoids,” Nair revealed.
“Athletes must know and follow the rules. They are solely responsible for any substance which is found in their body, regardless of whether there was an intention to cheat or not,” Nair added.
Venera Abdulla touched on what ASP needed to know before arriving in Hangzhou, urging everyone to be aware of the Prohibited List, and to have a close check on their athletes taking medications and supplements.
The roles and responsibilities of ASP as well as athletes were also mapped out at the webinar.