ASADA looks to parents to help tackle doping
Australia's anti-doping agency, ASADA, is to target parents in its latest strategy to fight doping.
In an exclusive interview on The Ticket, ASADA CEO David Sharpe says it's part of a strategy with a shift towards education and health.
"We'll launch an awareness program for parents of school age children to help them understand the pressures of doping," he said.
"I think we can influence not just sports but youth and we need to understand the health impacts to do that."
The ASADA boss says it doesn't mean parents are being asked to 'police' their children.
"Not at all.
"It means mums and dads need to be aware of what the issues are, what the health impacts are so they can inform their children when they come home and start talking about having been to the supplements store.
"We all have to own it. While it's my responsibility to lead this agency … it's also my responsibility to make sure everyone's aware of all the issues, with health being the biggest one."
Mr Sharpe was appointed to the top job at ASADA just over a year ago and has spent the past 12 months completing a number of reviews into the authority, and mapping its challenges.
"Every governance model requires constant review … we've run four, five different reviews to inform where we're going," he said.
"Every view needs to be challenged, anti doping around the world needs to be challenged and held to account."
The recent decision by international agency WADA to allow Russia back into the fold following its suspension for a state-sanctioned doping program has caused friction in anti-doping circles.
"We've all got to own that, it's easy to say WADA's governance structures have failed and RUSADA's been allowed back into the fold, but it's with conditions, and we need to now support those conditions and move forward," Mr Sharpe said.
"I think the disappointment stems from the fact that people believe the decision wasn't transparent and they weren't aware of it, there wasn't enough time to react to it.
"Sometimes you do need to take a step back to move forward.
"I believe athletes have been failed in the process because they weren't made aware either but it's time to move on now and make sure that those conditions now, the new conditions, are met and aren't altered again."
In April this year, ASADA answered a long-held complaint from stakeholders by creating an app allowing athletes, and other interested parties, to find out which supplements sold in Australia have been tested and which over-the-counter medications are safe to use.
The agency, under previous leadership, had resisted any moves to provide what might be interpreted as an 'approved' list choosing only to publish what was banned.
But Mr Sharpe says innovation is needed in dealing with a new generation who may fall foul of the system.
"Things like us putting an app out that kids can get onto at all levels, all ages, before they go into that supplements store," he said.
"What message we need to get out is, 'You might be a country-level league but if you sit under say an NRL and an NRL's drug policy you too can be put out of sport and it may be inadvertent', and I see a lot of that unfortunately.
"We need to get people to understand at all levels and buy in with us, it can't just come from us.
"You walk into a shopping centre and there's a supplements store and you see it on a shelf, the perception is 'We're good to go'. I's not."
ASADA encourages batch testing of supplements and believes up to a third don't work, another third may contain prohibited substances, and the rest are contaminated.
"What we don't understand is the health impact of those and we are going to do a lot of work with health experts to understand what the impacts are," Mr Sharpe said.
"The amount of money and time we spend on research and education and partnership, that message has not gone out to athletes that we're here to talk about health messages and we're here to try and stop inadvertent doping.
"We've got to communicate better with athletes and with sporting bodies and that certainly has been the focus of my first 12 months."
There is a tide of growing criticism of the WADA-led anti-doping movement from both within and outside the current administration that is seen to be too heavily reliant on funding from the International Olympic Committee, raising questions of a lack of independence.
The ASADA boss says he's prepared to hear what the critics have to say.
"I love the critics, the critics hold you to account and they make you focus on what your doing and what you're delivering," he said.
"Some are critics for the sake of it from an armchair — I've been one of them. I sit and watch sport every weekend and I can criticise my football team."
"For me, going forward, it's about listening to all views, taking into account everyone's views. Are we're doing it right? Should it be about testing? Should it be about education?"
Mr Sharpe's sole focus isn't domestic anti-doping though, he has clear, global ambitions.
"For me, moving forward into the next 12 months, it's about us taking a lead globally, uniting, coming together with all the world leaders in anti-doping and WADA to make sure we get it right."
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