Sport without doping?!

(How) can clean sports work?
Michael Cepic, Director of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA)

On April 23, 2014 Austria’s most prominent “doping detective” was the visiting speaker at the Entrepreneurial School^® in the framework of the Alumni & Friends lecture series.

“We see ourselves as adjudicators in the anti-doping effort.” That is how the director of NADA explains his role in the world of elite sports in Austria. “As an independent supervisory body, we ensure that the clean and fair athletes are protected,” he added.

Michael Cepic, a former basketball pro, stressed two main functions of NADA: the creation and operation of a transparent doping control system on the one hand, and educational work on the other. For him, awareness building in society in general is a essential element of NADA’s work to ensure that doping in sports is not seen as a trivial offense.

In Cepic’ opinion, this educational role must relate to three aspects, if the necessary degree of awareness building is to be achieved. Prevention campaigns are needed to ensure that tomorrow’s elite athletes have all the information and are aware of their “responsibility for their own bodies”. In a second step, elite athletes are offered a wealth of information on the subject of doping. “It’s important for us to provide athletes with accurate information, to make them aware of the dangers and offer sources of further information,” says Michael Cepic. As a third point, the head of NADA Austria stresses the need to make the general public aware of the issues and problems involved, with a package of advertising and strict controls to educate people on the subject. The speaker emphasized that there can be “no looking the other way” and that the focus must always be on “clean sport”.

The talk was chaired by MCI Professor Siegfried Walch.

Einladung_Cepic.pdf