1

ATHLETES OUTREACH PROGRAM - 2011 WORLD ROWING CHAMPIONSHIP, BLED

As a part of WADA′s fight against doping an athlete′s outreach program took place for the first time in the history at the World Rowing Championships. Interesting collaboration between the two related organizations at various levels, World Rowing Federation (FISA) and Slovenian anti-doping organization (SLOADO), showed the way in which world anti-doping program can successfully take place at the major sport events.

Special educational program, which included anti-doping quiz and informational material, was available for all the athletes and their entourage with the purpose to test and improve their knowledge about doping.

The Outreach program was carried out from 27,August, until 2, September, 2011 by SLOADO experts and was conducted with young anti-doping ambassadors, who are also representing Slovenia in the EADIn project (European anti-doping initiative) and former Slovenian top athletes (Maja Benedičič, Mojca Suhadolc, Tadeja Brankovič Likozar), who were recently trained for Doping control officers (DCO).

Working with athletes was very interesting, since anti-doping quiz, as a form of education, is a great approach. Every athlete wanted to be a winner and to get a SLOADO T-shirt. But to win the prize they had to provide a correct answer to each of 10 questions… Anti-doping quiz is translated to 26 languages so we didn’t experience any difficulties with understanding of the quiz.

Everybody who tested their knowledge with the quiz just loved it. They found it fun and informative, so that even those, whose knowledge was slightly, worse, learned a lot of new.

Athletes had the opportunity to solve the quiz at our tent and also at other places. In order to obtain as many participants, our young ambassadors went all around the entire athletes’ area. They took computer and rewards with them and enabled athletes to solve the quiz anywhere. This way we made sure that the message about the sport without doping covered a greater variety of people. Beside the quiz we also provided information materials that covered all the main areas of anti-doping: what is doping, doping control process, TUE and whereabouts. SLOADO team was also available for all questions that athletes and their entourage had. We believe that we provided all the information that athletes wanted.

2

The Outreach program was intended to be used by all championship participants in order to properly point at the dangers of doping, which are becoming a great risk in the entire sports world. Noble and respectable sport like rowing should be is no exception.

Also athletes with disabilities participated at these World Rowing Championship. Even between handicapped athletes doping is a growing problem. Around 40 handicapped athletes visited our program and we were delighted that we handed the massage about sport without doping to them. During the last few days athletes outreach program was nicely complemented with SLOADO DCOs. DCOs were there to conduct doping controls (in 4 days they collected 48 samples) and enriched the tent scene by their presence. Statistics: 1213 athletes from 68 countries participated at the World Rowing Championship. Athletes outreach program was visited by 378 athletes and their entourage from 54 countries. In the Table you can see the number of athletes/entourage from each country. COUNTRY NO. ATHLETES NO. ENTOURAGE 1. ALGERIA 9

2. ARGENTINA 6 2

3. ARMENIA 3

4. AUSTRALIA 1

5. AUSTRIA 2

6. BELARUS 1 1

7. BELGIUM 1 1 8. BULGARIA 1 9. CYPRUS 1 10. CZECH REPUBLIC 2 11. DENMARK 6 12. EGYPT 11 3 13. EL SALVADOR 8 14. ECUADOR 3 15. ESTONIA 2 16. FRANCE 2 17. GREECE 4 18. GEORGIA 1 19. CROATIA 3 20. INDIA 24 2 21. IRAQ 1 1 22. IRAN 1 23. IRELAND 4 24. ITALY 4 1 25. JAPAN 1 26. SOUTH AFRICA 8 1 27. COLUMBIA 1 28. CANADA 2 3 29. KENYA 4

3

30. CHINA 7 31. KOREA 5 1 32. CUBA 33 7 33. HUNGARY 3 34. MEXICO 3 35. MOLDAVIA 1 36. GERMANY 8 2 37. HOLLAND 6 38. NORWAY 1 39. PARAGUAY 2 1 40. POLAND 8 2 41. PORTUGAL 4 42. RUSSIA 1 43. SLOVAKIA 1 44. SLOVENIA 23 43 45. SERBIA 1 46. SPAIN 2 1 47. SWEDEN 1 48. SWISS 1 49. THAILAND 1 2 50. TURKEY 2 1 51. VENEZUELA 1 52. UKRAINE 32 19 53. GB 4 2

54. USA 11 3

271 107

Media:

1. Contribution in a TV show Rowing: World championship, report from Bled, 29.8.2011 at 8 p.m. on Slovenian National Television 2.

2. Contribution in Gorenjski Glas (main newspaper for Gorenjska region), 1.9.2011 and 4.9.2011

3. News on the SLOADO web page www.sloado.si 30.8.2011

4. News on the Slovenian Olympic Committee web page www.olympic.si 30.8.2011

5. News in e-Olympic circles, Slovenian Olympic Committee web informator, 31.8.2011, no. 28

4

Athlete’s testimonies: We asked around 30 athletes what they thought about our program. Everyone liked it and they believed, that outreach program was necessary for improving the knowledge about worlds fight against doping. They did have some comments, though:

- More computers (we only had 3) - More different prizes (we only had T-shirts) - More questions in the quiz.

Testimonies from American quad scull: To question what they thought about the outreach program they answered:

- ”It is a good initiative” - “It’s great” - “It’s a good program to help create

awareness” They said, that they all got all the information they needed and that they liked the prize (SLOADO T-shirt). We also asked them, what their recommendations for future events were. They said:

- “Keep promoting awareness” - “A selection of variety of prizes” - “More of this” - “Let more people know you were here”

Testimonie from Caroline Lind, American octupe scull: She said about the outreach program that it was great to increase awareness. She got all the information she needed and liked the prize. She didn’t have any recommendations for future events, she just told us to keep up our great work.

Caroline Lind with gold medal

5

Our equipment:

TENT

6

COMPUTER / TABLE

BEACH FLAG

CHAIR LCD

7

INFORMATION MATERIAL

SLOADO T-SHIRT

8

Recommendations for future events: 1. SLOADO will need more equipment for future events (especially computers), since athletes had to wait quite for some time to get to a computer. We all know that athletes are busy during competitions... At the next event we would like to have a bigger tend. Sometimes the whole team of athletes from one country came to our tent and it was quite busy. 2. We would like a better cooperation between World Rowing Federation and us; we didn't have the best location for the tent. We did arrange with the organising committee to have a tent near the lake, so that every athlete would see us. But FISA gave us other location that was quite far from all the athletes. We are still satisfied with the number of athletes that visited us, but we believe that more athletes would come if we had a better location. 3. Our »mobile« outreach program, where we walked around with computers and prizes turned out perfect. We got more athletes that we otherwise would. 4. Some of our visitors said that they would prefer a variety of prizes. In the future events we will try to have more different prizes, but it depends on our budget. Ph.D. Nina Makuc Jani Dvoršak Education coordinator Head of Slovenian anti-doping department