Education Collaboration Leads to Better Athlete Outcomes

Two new online courses for athletes and support personnel will soon be available, as the result of a collaboration between the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Drug Free Sport New Zealand and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority in Australia this week.

The two courses separately cater for the full spectrum of sport – from elite to grassroots, and will be available in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Focusing on enhancing education for community and sub-elite level athletes across all three countries, a new ‘Clean Sport 101’ course will be due for launch in the coming weeks. This course is designed to reach younger athletes, school students and sub-elite levels of sport to ensure they understand the core concepts of anti-doping, and its importance to their own sporting experience.

At the other end of the scale, a new course focused on the anti-doping rules for Tokyo2020 will become available in early 2020. The course will be completed by Olympic and Paralympic athletes and support personnel prior to the Games to ensure they are aware of important rules applicable at the Games.

The courses were developed collaboratively between the three countries’ Education teams, as the result of an ongoing global partnership designed to enhance anti-doping education worldwide.

In addition to the two new online courses, the group also discussed opportunities for continued collaboration including the creation of additional resources, future research, and the requirements of the impending International Standard for Education.

The Education programs in all three countries share similar opportunities and challenges, specifically around the need to raise the athlete voice, the challenge of supplements, and the engagement of national sporting organisations. As a result, collaboration and sharing resources is a natural fit to deliver better outcomes.

USADA’s Elite Education Manager Tammy Hanson said, “Having the opportunity to collaborate with leading educators in the anti-doping field has been enormously beneficial, and has allowed us to push forward resources in a much more efficient way. We are grateful to have such strong relationships with both ASADA and DFSNZ”

ASADA’s Director of Education and Innovation Alexis Cooper said “Many of the risks facing athletes in Australia are shared around the world. Collaboration enables us to pool our collective insights and create new and better resources, and reduce duplication.”

DFSNZ Education Manager Sian Clancy said, “Our goal is to continuously improve the ways in which we engage with the sports community. This will help us to protect clean athletes and promote clean sport."

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