Manama, Bahrain, August 27, 2025: The Director General of the Asian Mixed Martial Arts Association, Galastein Tan, commended the Olympic Council of Asia for including an anti-doping presentation in the 1st OCA-AMMA Development Programme for Coaches and Referees on Wednesday, August 27.
While believing that doping is not widespread in mixed martial arts, AMMA Director General Tan said an educative programme on anti-doping was just what was needed with the sport on the verge of making its debut as a medal sport in a multi-sport event.
“Having a session on anti-doping is very educational, especially with MMA debuting in three major events organised by the OCA in the near future. Coaches and referees have been made aware of the pitfalls of doping, and they now know that there will be in-competition testing at major games.
“Unlike in other sports, for instance athletics where you can take a performance-enhancing drug that will make you run faster, in MMA there is really no drug that will make you perform better.
“The bigger worry is taking banned substances as medicine, where unknowingly you can ingest a prohibited drug. Today’s seminar was eye-opening in this context,” Tan added.
However, Tan revealed that at an AMMA competition last year, an athlete had tested positive for a prohibited substance and had subsequently been banned.
The anti-doping session was the third and last part of the OCA’s three-pronged ‘Guarding the Asian Games’ initiative. The 107 participants at this three-day programme in Bahrain had previously listened to sessions on Safeguarding and the Prevention of Competition Manipulation.
The two-hour anti-doping session was conducted by Mohamed Sirajuddin, an official with the Bahrain National Anti-Doping Organisation, whose focus was on clean sport.
“The message was clear to all,” Tan added.
