The following Q&A, which WADA developed together with the Athlete Committee, is meant to address some specific questions that you as athletes may have regarding anti-doping in light of this challenging, and rapidly evolving situation.
Dear athletes, regarding the situation, be sure that WADA and the Anti-Doping community put your health first and will continue to strive to protect your right to enjoy a clean sport.
WADA issued guidelines for Anti-Doping Organizations work in a pandemic environment to minimize the risk of the disease transmission.
Therefore, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency “RUSADA” obliged its doping control personnel to use protective equipment, provided them with all means necessary to conduct the doping control procedure, and recommended that they regularly wash and disinfect their hands, use new gloves at the doping control station, and follow the recommended distance (two meters).
Doping control procedure.
If an athlete refuses to undergo testing or complete the sample collection process after the notification, or if he is unable (or unwilling) to provide a sample, the DCO must ensure that the athlete is aware of the potential consequences of refusal or failure to provide a sample and document this fact accordingly.
Therapeutic Use Exemptions.
The athlete is responsible to ensure that he has a valid TUE. If an athlete has difficulty accessing a doctor during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to obtain the necessary documentation to submit a TUE request, they must document all the actions they have taken and the obstacles they have encountered to comply with the relevant requirements. If you have any questions, please call the hotline: 8 (800) 770-03-32 (free of charge in Russia) +7 (965) 327-16-78
Providing information to the ADAMS system.
Also, athletes should continue to provide whereabouts as they remain subject to testing. Detailed video instructions how to work in ADAMS are available at the link: https://youtu.be/silOSPU2qAA
Rights of clean athletes.
It is also important for athletes to remember that samples continue to be stored for re-testing. Some samples collected after COVID-19 can be taken for additional testing to detect doping.
WADA pays special attention to regions where the testing level reduced or testing was canceled at all. When the situation improves, these testing ‘gaps’ may be addressed through additional target testing.
Finally, while testing may be reduced worldwide during this period, you can contribute to anti-doping efforts by ensuring you are up to date on the latest information and education and encourage your peers and teammates to do the same.
For that you can use «Report doping» button on RUSADA website.
You can learn more about anti-doping rules by taking RUSADA online course or by reading materials at RUSADA website “Education” section, as well as using WADA educational materials at the anti-doping education e-learning platform AdEL.
