Oceania Triathlon

With Thanksgiving Day in Canada this weekend, the ITU’s Anti-Doping department would like to give thanks for everyone who has helped us over the past season.

First of all, we would like to thank all of the athletes who make the appropriate decisions on a day to day basis and keep triathlon clean. They get woken up early in the morning and asked to urinate in front of a stranger and give blood without a second thought. They race hard and then spend the next few hours in a remote doping control station away from their family and friends who they want to celebrate with. They have also embraced the Say No! To Doping campaign that we started this year. Thank you to all of their coaches who foster fair play with their actions and their words and encourage their athletes to do the same.

Next, we would like to thank all of the ITU Executive Board, but especially ITU President Marisol Casado who has made anti-doping a priority in the budget, Secretary General Loreen Barnett who has made anti-doping a priority in the strategic plan and new mother Ria Damgren Nilsson who is our liaison on the Executive Board and works tirelessly on our behalf.

Also needing to be thanked are the National Federations and Event Organisers who make anti-doping a priority by testing their athletes regularly and including anti-doping education in all of their training sessions. Particularly good at reporting their test results and answering all of my questions in a timely fashion are Denmark, Italy and Spain. Also, thank you to the Brazilian Triathlon Federation who started their own anti-doping campaign for age groupers at the Pan American Sprint Triathlon Championships.

Thank you to the ITU Medical Committee who serves as the ITU Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee and make decisions on behalf of our athlete’s best health. Others who make decisions on our behalf are the members of our Anti-doping Hearing Panel Dr. Doug Hiller and Dr. James Lalley who bring their wisdom and knowledge to the table every time.

We would also like to thank some people who answer our questions regardless of the hour and day of the week Janie Soubliere who is our anti-doping legal counsel and Matt Koop of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) who has been managing our out of competition testing. New to the ITU anti-doping team is the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) who is managing our biological passport programme panel. Thank you to all of the National Anti-doping Organisations (NADOs), Regional Anti-doping Organisations (RADOs) and to the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) who make sure that testing and educating triathletes is a priority and who ask us the difficult questions so that our programme continues to get better.

We would also like to thank the hundreds of technical delegates and technical officials who put anti-doping on every meeting agenda and make sure that that testing is carried out properly at all of the events around the world. Also to the facilitators who make sure that anti-doping is properly covered in their courses for officials, coaches, administrators and athletes.

Thank you to our colleagues who send us timely financial statements and pay our invoices on time, make sure that we are represented properly in the media and on our website by creating powerful videos and articles to get our message across, and who make sure that anti-doping is a part of their development and educational programmes. Also, thank you to the Continental Coordinators who are taking on some anti-doping duties in addition to their regular duties.

We would also like to thank those of you who take the time to read this weekly newsletter and especially to USAT President Bob Wendling who, along with the USAT staff, have included an anti-doping portion in their own newsletter. Possibly our mothers and spouses may read this too but we doubt it. If they do, thank you to them as well and sorry that we are in Korea instead of spending Thanksgiving with them. Thank you to anyone that we may have missed. It was not intentional and we really do appreciate everything that is done to help the ITU Anti-doping programme.

If you have any questions about ITU’s anti-doping programme, please contact leslie.buchanan@triathlon.org.