• Table of contents
• Letter of transmittal
• Guide to this report
• Overview
• Report on performance
• Management and accountability
• Financial information
• Australian Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee
• Appendixes
• Abbreviations
• Glossary
• Tables
• Figures

Message from the Chair

This annual report is the fourth release by ASADA since its launch in March 2006. The reporting year 2008–09 has been a year of major progress for ASADA in delivering on its mission to protect Australia’s sporting integrity through the elimination of doping.

Throughout the year we were successful in delivering our required outcomes for the Australian Government and in maintaining our position of leadership in the delivery of world-class anti-doping.

Our ongoing commitment to quality was highlighted by the continued certification of our management system against the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2008 requirements. A detailed, independent re-certification audit conducted by the certification body again highlighted our continued compliance with this important quality standard.

During the year ASADA collaborated with international partners to promote shared learning and international best practice in anti-doping programs. This included liaison with the World Anti-Doping Agency, International Anti-Doping Arrangement (IADA) Steering Group, Association of National Anti-Doping Organisations as well as other international engagements. Australian athletes can be confident that ASADA’s open and constructive relationships with these key international anti-doping organisations will continue to strengthen the worldwide anti-doping regime and drive a level playing field in sports.

Beijing 2008

The Beijing Olympics in August 2008 represented the conclusion of a year-long anti-doping partnership between ASADA and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) designed to ensure that the cleanest possible team from Australia represented us in Beijing. That anti-doping partnership resulted in the most comprehensive anti-doping measures yet put in place for an Australian Olympic Team. The success of that program, which included over 2,000 tests of Olympic and shadow team members, ensured that Australia’s outstanding performance at the Games would not be tainted by any suggestion of the use of performance-enhancing drugs. We congratulate the Australian Olympic Team, the AOC and the Australian Summer Olympic Sports Federations for their unfailing commitment to pure performance in sport.

We have remained focused on reinforcing our significant anti-doping capability as we delivered our Australian Government outputs in the areas of deterrence, detection and enforcement.

Deterrence Program

A key deterrence program during the reporting year was the implementation of the new World Anti-Doping Code (the Code) by 1 January 2009. Following a two-year period of international consultation, the new Code represents the next iteration of the common fight against doping in sport.

The new Code expands and defines how anti-doping organisations should manage possible doping violations such as possession, trafficking and administration, where a positive test may not be available to support the case. As a leader in successfully applying investigations and intelligence techniques for detecting serious doping violations, we welcome these important changes to the Code.

The implementation of the new Code was a significant undertaking, as the revision involved a major redraft of a core piece of ASADA legislation in the form of the National Anti-Doping (NAD) scheme. Additionally, we were required to re-draft the anti-doping policy template for Australian national sporting organisations (NSOs) to ensure that each Australian sport would have a Code-compliant policy in place by 1 January 2009. We would like to thank the 91 Australian sports, including all of Australia’s professional sporting organisations, for their patience, professionalism and partnership in moving to Code compliance by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) deadline. This unified compliance by sporting bodies demonstrated Australia’s commitment to the harmonisation of pure performance.

Since ASADA’s launch in 2006, we have committed to deliver comprehensive anti-doping education programs to athletes and support personnel around Australia. Education plays a critical role in the fight against doping in sport by making the athletes of today and athletes of tomorrow aware of the health risks and consequences of doping. Our education programs also seek to instil values of competing fairly and cleanly as well as providing information about how to avoid inadvertently violating doping rules through ingestion of a common medication.

The 2008–09 ASADA Education Service Charter was a critical ASADA program to deliver the message of pure performance to the broadest possible audience in an informative and engaging way.

Our forecast of 8,000 attendees was exceeded when over 10,500 athletes and support personnel attended one of our 221 education sessions delivered across Australia during the reporting year.

As in previous years, surveys of attendees highlighted the importance of the Education Service Charter and that our key messages of pure performance were being effectively delivered.

The feedback also highlighted the changing needs of athletes for anti-doping education. Young people today have embraced internet and mobile phone technology as their preferred means of convenient access to information and education. Whereas the past focus was on face-to-face sessions, the future of anti-doping education is likely to include online content and access to information through mobile technologies. Our challenge going forward will be to invest in new technology platforms to provide engaging, ‘on demand’ education for athletes and support personnel around the country, through a combination of face-to-face and online delivery. We are currently exploring delivery options for education using these kinds of emerging technologies.

Detection Program

We continue to refine and expand on a Detection Program that is one of the most comprehensive in international sport. Any Australian athlete involved in doping today stands a greater chance of detection as a result of our ability to combine the strengths of testing with the capability to investigate allegations of doping through our partnerships and information-sharing arrangements with other specified organisations.

As a result, any athlete involved in sophisticated doping cannot be assured that, even if they beat a single test, their doping has gone undetected. We have the ability to store selected urine and blood samples for up to the eight-year statute of limitations on a doping offence, to allow for the application of new technology to detect doping. Through our partnerships with agencies such as the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (Customs and Border Protection), all incidents of importing doping substances through the internet or carrying banned substances through airports are referred to us. In each case, the matters are examined to determine if there are any links to Australian sport.

This comprehensive capability to detect doping is proving successful. Through a coordinated strategy that combined 7,498 blood and urine tests with 32 investigations, and the analysis of 1,614 Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs referrals by Customs and Border Protection, 29 athletes and support personnel were placed on the Register of Findings (RoF) during the reporting year. This continues the trend, evident since the launch of ASADA, of our expanded anti-doping capability making it significantly more likely that athletes involved in doping will get caught.

While Australia has a proud history of competing doping-free, our Detection Program ensures that the few athletes who seek to enhance their performance through doping are more likely to be detected than ever before.

Enforcement Program

A key Australian Government output for ASADA is in the preparation and presentation of anti-doping cases to independent sporting tribunals. Our Enforcement Program is designed to ensure that athletes subject to allegations of doping are treated fairly and transparently, in accordance with the principles of natural justice enshrined in our legislation and under the Code and the relevant sport’s anti-doping policy. The decision about what sanction an athlete should receive for a doping violation is a matter for the anti-doping tribunal for the relevant sport.

During the year we determined that 29 athletes and support personnel had cases to answer for breaking anti-doping rules. These cases, and cases progressing from the previous reporting year, saw us involved in 28 matters where sporting tribunals elected to impose sanctions, or where athletes accepted the required sanction under the Code. None of our decisions to place an athlete in the RoF were overturned by an appeals panel.

We also continued to be successful in enforcing sanctions against athletes for violations of anti-doping rules for using substances that could not be detected through a traditional test. We are a world leader in presenting so-called non-analytical cases, where evidence from non-testing sources is used to satisfy a sporting tribunal of a violation of anti-doping rules. During the reporting year, 38 per cent of our successful case prosecutions of serious doping violations were secured without a traditional positive test.

Support programs

As a statutory Australian Government agency, we continue to deliver on our requirements for robust governance and financial management.

In fully delivering on our Australian Government outcomes, ASADA had a reportable surplus for the year of $0.351m as a result of tight financial management. The mid-year tightening of activity has provided us with capital funds for an expanded level of capital purchases in 2009–10 and 2010–11, in particular, to ensure IT systems which house private and confidential data will continue to provide the highest level of functionality and data security.

Internally, we demonstrated strong resource management, and corporate and operational planning throughout 2008–09. Major achievements include implementation of a new Strategic Plan, a revised organisational structure, completion of a Cost Recovery Review and a new collective agreement.

We continued to invest in our people through learning and development programs, and through work experience opportunities. Staff also participated in numerous domestic and international forums. We are delighted to confirm that, following on from the assistance provided by our world-class doping control staff during the Beijing Olympics, some of our people have been invited to work as Doping Control Officers at the 2012 London Olympics.

In the 2009–10 Budget, the Australian Government approved $54.5 million over four years for ASADA activities. For ASADA to receive this funding in a difficult budget environment demonstrates Australia’s commitment to pure performance in sport and our capability to deliver on that commitment.

The year ahead

During 2009–10 we will continue to expand on our capability to achieve pure performance with a key focus on the following areas:

• implementation of new governance arrangements for ASADA, including changes to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority Act 2006 (ASADA Act) following the completion of a review by the Department of Health and Ageing
• Pure Performance Programs in partnership with the AOC for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and the Commonwealth Games Association for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India, and
• launch of an online tool to allow users to search for a medication or substance and find out whether it is prohibited or permitted in sport.

The successful delivery of ASADA’s mission to protect Australian sport from doping relies on the partnership of many stakeholders across Australian and international sport. On behalf of the ASADA members, I want to thank our dedicated and committed staff as well as athletes and sports across Australia for their commitment to clean sport.

I also wish to thank the Minister for Sport, the Hon. Kate Ellis MP, for her support of ASADA as demonstrated by her attendance at ASADA events. In particular ASADA welcomed the Minister’s announcement of extra funding for ASADA in the 2009–10 Budget.

The year ahead promises new opportunities as we continue to seek a level playing field in Australian and international sport. ASADA will continue to take a leadership role in the global fight against doping in sport.

Richard Ings
Chair
Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority

 

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