The International University Sports Federation (FISU) Medical Committee chairman is confident the anti-doping plans for the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade will prove effective.
Dusan Hamar is in charge of the doping controls for the event which is scheduled to take place between August 19 and 30.
Doping controls including out of competition testing will officially commence tomorrow when the Athletes’ Village opens.
Looking ahead, Hamar said the plans, which will work alongside the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), have been well thought out before the competition begins.
“The test distribution plan has been prepared by the Organizing Committee’s Doping Control Department under the guidance of the FISU Medical Committee,” he said.
“It respects WADA’s technical document for sport specific analyses, which not only test on ranking but also has some flexibility to test any suspicious intelligence information gained during the Games.”
He went onto say that a lot of the work which will be completed during the Universiade will be about teaching athletes about anti-doping sport.
A “Check-Up Your Heart” scheme has also been established, which will be the largest cardiac evaluation project for elite athletes ever produced.
“Education and maintaining awareness of the doping problem is an important part of the anti-doping fight,” Hamar added.
“There will be an educational booth in the Athletes’ Village, where participants will have the opportunity to extend their knowledge on doping.
“The Check-Up Your Heart team will work hard to reach a target of screening 2,000 Universiade athletes.
“The two main goals are to obtain more precise information on the incidence of cardiac abnormalities among elite athletes, and to offer the opportunity of a complex heart screening to the athletes who do not have access to such sophisticated technology in their home countries.”
Yesterday, it was announced that Russia’s Andrei Krivov is set to lose his 20 kilometer race walk gold medal from the 2011 Universiade in Shenzhen after being given a three-year doping ban.
He was suspended in April 2016 after abnormalities in his biological passport were discovered, with his results between May 20 in 2011 and July 6 in 2013 being erased.
By George Thorpe
Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.