WADA Conferences 

The annual World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Symposium gathers practitioners from International Federations, National and Regional Anti-Doping Ogrnaisations and Major Event Organisation, as well as athletes, Governments, WADA accredited laboratories, service providers and researchers with the goal of advancing the global anti-doping system. The theme of the 2024 symposium, ‘One Mission – One Team’ focused on global collaboration and raising the game for athletes worldwide.

Some of the highlights from the 2024 symposium included the opportunity to celebrate WADA’s 25th anniversary with the anti-doping community and look back at the journey the world of anti-doping has taken since WADA was established in 1999. Another highlight of the symposium was the report provided on the recent collaboration between WADA, the European National Anti-Doping Organization’s (NADOs) and law enforcement in Europe in strengthening Intelligence and Investigations in the region. This project was very successful and resulted in the seizing of performance enhancing drugs, destroying of illegal laboratories, and sanctioning of cheats. The intention moving forward is to roll out similar projects in other regions.

The symposium also included an interesting session on benchmarking performance, where WADA is committed to supporting Anti-Doping Organisations (ADOs) in assessing themselves relative to others and thereby developing a more realistic view of what ADOs should be striving to achieve with program delivery.

An equally interesting session was delivered on education focusing on the value of investing in education as a central part of clean sport. This session touched on the need to educate behaviors and not knowledge and focus education efforts on athlete support personnel as well as athletes. In addition, there was discussion on how social science research can and should inform strategy on education and the importance of shifting the approach of our education from ‘what not to do’ to ‘what should you do’.

The symposium brought together anti-doping officials from all over the sporting world and the networking breaks, of which there were plenty, did not fail to deliver. It was exciting to build relations with anti-doping representatives from other International Federations and meet representatives from the National and Regional Anti-Doping Organisation. These relations go a long way in enabling the ICC to effectively deliver a comprehensive anti-doping program across the cricketing world.