Cyrille Tchatchet at the IWF/ITA Clean Sport Seminar: “Education is of paramount importance!”

In a full-packed room, the IWF/ITA Clean Sport Seminar attracted today in Manama (BRN) more than 90 attendees, namely athletes and support personnel participating in the IWF World Championships. Cyrille Tchatchet, member of the IWF Athletes Commission, Olympian in Tokyo 2020ne, and candidate to the WADA Athlete Council was a distinguished guest at the gathering and used the opportunity to stress the importance of this topic in the consolidation of a fair and clean environment within the sport of weightlifting.

Cyrille Tchatchet at the IWF/ITA Clean Sport Seminar

“Education is of paramount importance when talking about anti-doping programmes. Mistakes in this area are easily happening, so informing our athletes about all possible scenarios certainly avoids many bad surprises,” declared Tchatchet. Still an active athlete, the British lifter (his native country is Cameroon and he competed for the Olympic Refugee Team in Japan) was pleased with how the information was passed to the participants. “A lot of analogies and examples were given and this is quite good – sometimes complicated things are better understood if we use some analogies to explain them”.

Thais Cevada lecturing the seminar

Before him, the Seminar was opened by Antonio Urso, IWF General Secretary. “Sport is mainly about ethics. You can train, you may win or not win, but nothing is possible without ethics. Sport has these unique characteristics – it gathers people from the five continents and it hopefully forms better citizens in life. Please don’t waste this opportunity and always abide by ethics!” declared Mr Urso.

Antonio Urso (IWF General Secretary) welcoming the attendees

The meeting was then lectured by Thais Cevada, a former international-level gymnast for Brazil, and presently a member of the IWF Anti-Doping Commission and International Testing Agency (ITA) Ambassador. Cevada briefed the participants about the importance of correctly knowing the rights and responsibilities of each protagonist in this process – athletes, coaches, and doctors. “Don’t forget that the anti-doping rules have a principle of strict liability – this means that any substance found in an athlete’s body is his or her responsibility”.

The ITA Ambassador then spoke at length about the mechanisms to report any wrongdoing and recalled the importance of a cautious attitude regarding supplements taken by athletes. “There is no supplement in the world that is 100% sure. They are not prohibited, but please keep in mind that they are also not recommended,” Cevada explained.

After the Seminar, all participants are invited to visit the IWF/ITA Clean Sport booth, located in the competition venue of the Championships. For the next couple of days, Thais Cevada will be available to continue informing athletes and their entourage about practical aspects related to these matters.

IWF Communications