On Side

While the sport supplement market might be thriving, the use of supplements can destroy an athlete’s career. Supplement manufacturers often use omissions or alternative names to lure buyers in and create the illusion of a clean substance. When in fact many contain substances that are prohibited in sport. A recent research collaboration between Sport Integrity Australia and Human and Supplement Testing Australia (HASTA) found that of 200 supplement products tested, 35 per cent contained one or more WADA Prohibited Substances. In addition to this, 57 per cent of the products that tested positive did not list the prohibited ingredients on their packaging or website. In this episode our host Tim Gavel speaks to a panel of guests about the research results, risks around use of supplements and how this can lead to unintentional doping. To contribute to the survey, please visit this link Call for Contributions on Unintentional Doping Survey Find out more at https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/ Follow us on our social accounts: https://www.facebook.com/SportIntegrityAus https://www.instagram.com/sportintegrityaus https://x.com/protectingsport https://au.linkedin.com/company/sport-integrity-australiaSupport the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of On Side we’re joined by one of Australia's greatest sporting legends, Lauren Jackson – a five-time Olympian, WNBL and WNBA champion, and global icon in basketball. Lauren has not only dominated on the court but continues to make a lasting impact off the court. We talk with Lauren about her journey from the grassroots through elite sport, the barriers and inequities women and girls still face in sport, and how she’s using her platform to lead change, inspire the next generation, and drive equity in sport. LJ also speaks frankly about her experiences in the anti-doping space and the need for sport to remain clean and fair. *Any mention of corporate sponsorships in this episode of On Side does not constitute an endorsement by Sport Integrity Australia. Find out more at https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/ Follow us on our social accounts: https://www.facebook.com/SportIntegrityAus https://www.instagram.com/sportintegrityaus https://x.com/protectingsport https://au.linkedin.com/company/sport-integrity-australiaSupport the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our Athlete Advisory Group (AAG) plays a vital role informing the strategic direction and shaping education strategies of the agency. Through their collective lived experience, they provide insights into the pressures and influences that can threaten the integrity of sport, and how we can better assist athletes to be clean, safe and fair in sport. Marathon runner Cassie Fien was a member of our AAG for more than four years. With her final term recently coming to an end, we had a chat with Cassie about her role on the AAG, in particular, the lived experience she was able to share as a sanctioned athlete. Hear more of Cassie’s unique and valuable insights in this episode of On Side. Find out more at https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/ Follow us on our social accounts: https://www.facebook.com/SportIntegrityAus https://www.instagram.com/sportintegrityaus https://x.com/protectingsport https://au.linkedin.com/company/sport-integrity-australiaSupport the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do we stop or curb the use of Performance and Image Enhancing drugs in sport? In the fight to keep sport clean, safe and fair, shutting down illicit drug production and distribution has become a task that requires a multidisciplinary approach. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is pushing national anti-doping agencies and law enforcement to collaborate to prevent and respond to integrity threats in sport. WADA has expanded its Intelligence and Investigations Capability and Capacity Building Project, into Asia and Oceania, following the success of a similar program in Europe. The first of six workshops was held in Australia this month, with representatives from 10 countries in attendance. With the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games touted as the Pacific Games, we speak with Chair of the Oceania Regional Anti-Doping Organization, Dr Lawrence Teariki Puni, along with WADA Investigator, John McLaughlin, about the importance of collaboration in combatting drugs in sport. Find out more at https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/ Follow us on our social accounts: https://www.facebook.com/SportIntegrityAus https://www.instagram.com/sportintegrityaus https://x.com/protectingsport https://au.linkedin.com/company/sport-integrity-australiaSupport the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guest: Dr Gemma Payne (Assistant Director, Science & Medicine) Today (11 February) is International Day of Women and Girls in Science. It’s a time for the team at Sport Integrity Australia to reflect on the important work of women in this field. This year’s theme is: Unpacking STEM Careers: Her Voice in Science and is the 10th anniversary of the event – 2025 International Day of Women and Girls in Science | UNESCO. The gender composition of our Science and Medicine team at Sport Integrity Australia is 90% women. In addition to this, membership of the Australian Sports Drug Medical Advisory Committee, established under the Sport Integrity Australia Act, is 70% female. Our Science and Medicine team work hard to understand the science of doping and the analytical procedures used to test samples. Being at the forefront of wider developments in forensic science is an essential part of the team’s role in deterring, disrupting and detecting doping in sport. On this International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we speak with our Assistant Director of Science and Medicine, Dr Gemma Payne. Gemma completed a Bachelor of Science with Honours (in Forensic Science) at university, followed by a PhD. Our host Tim Gavel speaks with Gemma about her role at Sport Integrity Australia, the importance of forensics in the intelligence process at the agency and the fresh approach women bring to the field of science. Find out more on our website: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/Support the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guests: Swimming Australia's Integrity Manager Lydia Scott and Swimming Australia's Complaints and Compliance Manager Scott Elliott Investing in integrity is crucial for the long-term sustainability of sport, but sadly it’s not the subject everyone in sport ‘wants’ to discuss. With more than 90 National Sporting Organisations, National Sporting Organisations for people with Disability and Sport Administration Bodies adopting the National Integrity Framework or working towards the Integrity Policy Standards, sports are looking for new and innovative ways to highlight the importance of integrity in sport within their membership. In November (2024), Swimming Australia launched its inaugural National Integrity Month, using the acronym FISH to spread awareness about its values – Fairness, Integrity, Safety, Happiness. It’s an event the organisation will now hold annually to boost the profile of integrity and the role we all play in protecting sport. Some of the messaging is as simple as providing clubs with information and advice on appropriate photo use of young swimmers. In this episode of On Side, we chat with Swimming Australia’s National Integrity Manager, Lydia Dowse, and Complaints and Compliance Manager, Scott Elliott, to find out more about how they prioritise integrity for the safety of members and the long-term sustainability of their sport.Support the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This month the team at Sport Integrity Australia bid farewell to our Deputy CEO of Strategy and International Engagement Darren Mullaly as he packs up a rich history in Australian sport taking on the role of Government Relations Director at the World Anti-Doping Agency. Darren has much to celebrate after an 18-year career protecting the integrity of sport in Australia. With a background in law and accounting, Darren joined the former Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) in 2006 taking on a role in Legal Services. In 2020, with the creation of Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) Darren became Deputy CEO of Strategy and International Engagement. Darren has an impressive CV, including leading SIA’s strategic policy units and international engagement, representing the Australian Minister for Sport and Australian Government at key international sport integrity meetings, and being the Minister for Sport’s Registered Deputy at WADA Executive Committee and Foundation Board meetings. Our Media Advisor, Tim Gavel, sat down with Darren before his departure to reflect on his career at SIA and chat about the new opportunities ahead with WADA. Vodcast available via Sport Integrity Australia YouTube channel.Support the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode of our podcast On Side talks to champion cyclist Anna Meares, Australia's new Chef de Mission for the Paris Olympic Games, and Sport Integrity Australia's Advisory Council Chair Sarah Kenny.  They discuss the importance of embedding integrity in sport, how to create a safe environment for athletes to perform in and their roles in influencing the sporting landscape.Support the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode of our podcast On Side talks to Play the Aussie Way campaign ambassadors, NBL legend Cal Bruton, Ellie Cole, Australia's most decorated female Paralympian, and young soccer player Harry about the culture shift they hope to lead. While Playing the Aussie Way means something slightly different to each of them, there are common themes – respect, inclusion, fun and trying your best. Sixteen-year-old Harry says his enjoyment of sport changed when he took the result out of the equation. “Last year was the first year I tried just playing for fun and I really felt more connected to the sport and felt more like I wanted to play each week and like I wanted to go to training,” he says. “So I think that's the better way to approach the game.” Basketball coaches are renowned for histrionics, with Cal even admitting he was at the wrong end of the whistle once. The NBL Hall of Famer, who still has to deal with racism in sport, says “it's always the challenge”. “I try to live my life to be the best possible person I can be and be a mentor and a leader for all young disadvantaged youth that are looking for an opportunity to be on the right track and grow and sport is a just a tremendous vehicle for that.” And, while there are still challenges when it comes to racism and discrimination, sport has come a long way. Ellie says this really hit her at the Tokyo closing ceremony. “I was wrapping up my entire 17-year Paralympic career and I was surrounded by people who have chosen to be the best version of themselves despite what has happened to them,” she says. “That's exactly what Play the Aussie Way is about. It's about everyone having access to an opportunity like what I had.” Find out more information at https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/ Follow our socials: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SportIntegrityAus X: https://twitter.com/ProtectingSport Instagram: https://instagram.com/sportintegrityaus?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg==Support the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted by Tim Gavel, in this week's program we explore life after sport and how hard it is for athletes to find their niche. We talk to AFL forward Josh Bruce, who retired near the end of the AFL season, 3-time Olympic gold medallist, swimmer, Petria Thomas, and Ben Hardy, an Olympian and former captain of the Australian national volleyball team. Find out more information at https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/ Follow our socials: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SportIntegrityAus X: https://twitter.com/ProtectingSport Instagram: https://instagram.com/sportintegrityaus?igshid=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg== Produced by Ryan MicallefSupport the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mental Health Awareness Month (October) encourages all of us to think about our mental health and wellbeing. In this episode of On Side, we talk about mental health, the impact and how we can make mental health and wellbeing a priority in sport. We are joined by former ABC sports broadcaster and mental health advocate, Craig Hamilton, and Georgia Ridler, Sport Integrity Australia's consulting Mental Health Advisor. Craig talks about his own mental health battles, which manifested at the peak of his career as he was preparing to be part of the ABC commentary team for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. “It changed my life significantly because I went into hospital with a manic episode and I came out of hospital with a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and therefore had been diagnosed at that point with a mental illness,” Craig says. “It changed the way I had to live my life and the choices I made, the decisions I made and my lifestyle.” Mental health does not discriminate, he says, and has impacted high-profile sports stars including Wally Lewis, Andrew Johns, Nathan Thompson and Wayne Schwass. “It doesn't matter how good you are, your ability has got nothing to do with it.” He also talks about the release of his documentary The Promise that aims to spark a conversation, an action and a solution for mental health and suicide prevention. Among those featured are sporting legends Wayne Bennett, Tim Tszyu, Paul Harragon and Joe Williams and media personality Jessica Rowe. We also speak to Georgia Ridler, Sport Integrity Australia's consulting Mental Health Advisor. Georgia has been a leader in mental health and sport over the past 20 years and was the Olympic Psychologist for the Tokyo 2020 Games. She says the conversation around mental health in a sporting context is changing. “I think the conversation is certainly open and people may not be getting it perfect yet. We're all human, but I think it's a more open conversation for athletes and staff, which is fantastic, and I think it will only become more open,” she says. She discusses the triggers for athletes, whether it being anxiety from being away from home, travelling, expectations, injuries, as well as the conflicting values in an elite sporting environment, the added distractions an athlete today faces and how to build resilience. Ridler says if a high-performance culture is engrained in the sport, it has benefits in the field of play. “If culture is built well and there is a strong focus on wellbeing, then typically the work is done, particularly if we're focusing on an athlete,” she says. “Typically … if the person feels very supported, that means that then when they go into those high-performance environments, high pressure moments, they can actually just focus on performing in the moment and that's the ideal situation. “That's always the trick of being a high performing athlete at the top. It's a matter of being able to put all of the things into place before that moment of performance and then be able to just focus on what's necessary.”  It is important to look after your mental health and wellbeing and seek support if you need it. If this podcast has triggered you in any way, or if you, or someone you know, is in immediate danger, please call 000, visit your nearest hospital emergency, or call a crisis helpline. You can call: LIFELINE on 13 11 14 or BEYOND BLUE on 1300 224 636.Support the show: https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Matilda Michelle Heyman is featured in the latest episode of our podcast On Side. Michelle played for Australia 61 times between 2010-2018, booting 20 goals before a series of injuries forced her to retire from international duties in 2019. When Cortnee Vine's penalty kick hit the back of the net against France, the whole of Australia roared as one. The recognition and support was a long time coming, says the former Australian striker. “This is something that I think every single Matilda or every single female athlete has wanted for such a long time, she says. “To see something so special like our World Cup, to see those numbers, to see the amount of people in the stands on home soil is incredible. We've pushed for this. We've tried to sell our brand for a very long time.” She says the support the team received from other sporting teams – men and women - was incredible. “Seeing the Boomers with all their jerseys on and changing the time of their game just so they could watch the girls, that's something special.” The W-League all-time record goal-scorer also talks about the Matildas' inspiring run to the semis, the growth of female sport and what keeps driving her on the pitch.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest episode of our podcast On Side explores the evolution of Paralympic sport in Australia. It also discusses the need to include Paralympic voices in the decision making, along with the role Paralympic sport can play as a vehicle for greater social inclusion and to understanding disability. It features Paralympians: Ella Sabljak, an Australian wheelchair basketball and rugby player, and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Athlete Council and Sport Integrity Australia's Athlete Advisory Group, and Richard Nicholson, a two-time Paralympic silver medallist and part of Sport Integrity Australia's Sports Partnerships team. What began as a simple “rallying of the troops” as a team captain has led to multiple roles as an advocate for athletes for Ella, including as a member of Paralympics Australia's Athlete Commission. “I've always fought for the underdog and love helping athletes have their own voice,” she says. “You don't really realise that athletes' voices aren't heard. It's not until you're sitting back at home after the fact and you really wish you could have made an impact or you're seeing things differently, so I think that reflection piece as an athlete moving forward has really shaped how I carry myself and how I approach situations now.” Her appointment on the WADA Athlete Council is testament to her efforts in standing up for athletes, however she urges us all to be a “champion of change, so no one is left behind”. She also discusses the Paralympic classification system, doping in Paralympic sport, discrimination and the need for education. Richard, a two-time Paralympic medallist across two sports, discusses the evolution of Paralympics and disability sport in Australia. When he first began competing in disability sports he says he “didn't know where” he fitted in among a “confusing” number of competing agencies. He says his first Paralympics experience in Atlanta was disappointing, in terms of the experience and his results. “Like all athletes, I was excited to get inside the village and when we arrived there was a swarm of tradies tearing down various events and various things inside the village and dismantling it and I thought ‘what's going on here, we haven't even started yet?' The Paralympics in 1996 were literally saved by a philanthropic donation … or those Games would have been cancelled all together.” However, there was one incident at the Sydney Paralympic Games that changed his feelings about sport and his role within it. While he on his way to watch an event he came across a young boy with his mum, who asked her: “I wonder what sport that man plays?” The Games was a “watershed moment” for disability sport in Australia, he adds. “That's when I started looking at the bigger picture and how I could be involved in changing that for the better.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest episode of our podcast On Side looks at the issue of safeguarding participants of sport. It discusses the findings of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study and what it means for sport, and the work done as a result of Sport Integrity Australia's review of the Western Australian Institute of Sport's Women's Artistic Gymnastics Program. The interview features: Professor Daryl Higgins Director, Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University Kait McNamara Director, Child Safeguarding, Department of Local Sport and Cultural Industries (Western Australia) Emma Gardner A/g Director Safeguarding, Sport Integrity Australia. Professor Higgins revealed the findings of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study which showed 62% of Australians had experienced 1 or more types of maltreatment. Concerningly, maltreatment is chronic, not isolated, according to the study, with 2 in 5 experiencing maltreatment. “We're just scratching the surface,” he said.  “We know that many forms of abuse and neglect are more prevalent for women compared to men and … looked at changes over time, gender differences, age cohort differences and that's really the power of a study as comprehensive as ours is.” He said the response to the study was positive. “We're already seeing that in terms of different sectors saying how valuable the data is to them, both in terms of prevention, knowing how extensive it is and therefore what are some of the drivers that we need to be addressing in our community, but also in terms of responses. “We know now that one of the really significant drivers of the scourge that we have in Australia of mental ill health is childhood experiences of abuse and neglect.” McNamara said the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse showed there was no type of institution that escaped this type of abuse and harm of children. However, that the response from sport is crucial. “It's crucial for them being just aware of who can support them if something does happen at their club, who do they need to contact in the police, who do they need to contact … So I think it's around not putting our heads in the sand and making sure we just accept the fact these things could happen. “We prevent them where we can, but if they do occur, how do we support that young person in a very, very critical moment because that can really shape how they then move forward from their journey.” The key risk areas identified by the Royal Commission – such as transporting children and overnight stays – are still the same key increased risk areas that Sport Integrity Australia was seeing, according to Gardner, from Sport Integrity Australia. “Overwhelmingly the largest proportion of complaints [Sport Integrity Australia receives] involve children,” she said. Those complaints snowballed after the release of the documentary Athlete A, but “gymnastics is not an island”, she said.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Olympic sprinter Patrick Johnson has joined Sport Integrity Australia as a Culture and Safety Advisor to ensure our responses are appropriate and informed. In this edition of On Side, Patrick talks about his role in helping to develop an agency and a sporting landscape that is culturally capable, respectful and engaging. “I think there's a shift to understanding sport as a vehicle for health, for education, to awareness, but also know what it means around reconciliation,” he says. “And I think that there's a sense of the next nine years until Brisbane 2032 that we want to ensure that all Australians are part of the Olympic Games and part of sport and that's probably a bigger picture that we've looked at.” He says the shift is even more important with the 2032 Olympics on the horizon. “You can see the shift around real respect, real acknowledgment and real understanding. There has to be a pathway regardless of where you live in this country. If you want to be a great sports person then let's make sure you have the opportunity ... It should be not just for the rich, it should be for every single person in this country to aspire, believe and could be part of.” He says the great thing about many athletes is that they are driving the change themselves because they see Australia and sport as diverse and multicultural. “But how do we ensure that it's for everyone? And I think the great thing that we've got in Australia, there's a real movement within athletes in this country that are really the game changers.” Best known for being the only Australian man to smash the 10-second barrier for the 100m, Patrick also discusses his career path, the importance of language, the role of the media, and his hopes for the future of sport. We also talk to former Australian Diamond captain and world champion Caitlin Bassett who, too, has recently taken up a role at Sport Integrity Australia as an Athlete Educator. Education has come a long way since she began her career, she says. “The information that I was getting at the start of my career and the information I was getting at the end was vastly different,” she says. “I was always learning every time we came together to do an education session, whether it being around drugs and sport, whether it be around integrity issues, around wagering and betting in sport and things like that, it was always something new and something learning because sport was evolving at such a rapid rate.” For many years the poster girl for Australian netball, she says the profile also came at a price, particularly when social media came along. “By opening up your life and sharing your life to them “[fans] is a great way, I guess, to bring them along on the ride with you,” she says, “but you are also opening yourself up to the negative side and that is obviously abuse and some of the unkind comments that come along with it.” Those comments were not only from “fans” ready to critique her performance, but from disgruntled gamblers, she says.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the latest episode of our podcast On Side, esteemed lawyers Richard Young and Adair Donaldson provide incredible insights into their roles, including on anti-doping and abuse cases. Young, a leader in anti-doping litigation, has worked on the cases against Tour de France winners Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis, Marion Jones, and the BALCO doping scandal. He also worked on the Essendon supplements case. He says he lost sleep over “all of them” and admits there has been push back as a result of his work. “I'm not real welcome in China because of Sun Yang,” Young admits. “I'm not going back to Russia because of my role in the Russian investigation. After the Essendon case I sure got a lot of letters from Melbourne … I've been back to Melbourne, but I don't think I'd run for political office there.” Adair Donaldson, who specialises in assisting survivors of trauma, says the independence offered by National Integrity Framework gives sports a lot of comfort. “That's really very important,” he says. He admits, however, that the Framework will not always satisfy everybody. “And that's going to be the case no matter what … [it's] a lot better than what we've had in the past, so that to me, is a really good step in the right direction.” Donaldson, who works closely with sporting bodies addressing cultural issues with respect to harassment, abuse, violence, and alcohol-related issues, suspects the reason why athletes are coming forward now is that “they feel confident that they will be listened to. Isn't that good? Because in the past these people have just suffered in silence.” Young admits prosecuting abuse, particularly emotional abuse, is difficult. “That will be one of the issues for Sport Integrity Australia. Is it emotional abuse? Is it motivational coaching? Is it what good coaches do? Or is it emotional abuse? And you know they're egregious examples like coaches beating their athletes, physical abuse, but the emotional abuse gets tough, but you gotta deal with the cases and bring them if you want kids to be safe in sport or you want any athlete to be safe in sport.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guests: Dr Sian Clancy, Alexis Cooper, Kelsa Ferguson, Cassie Fien and Nick Paterson In this episode of On Side we discuss the dangers of supplements and the importance of education in anti-doping to prevent inadvertent doping due to supplements. This podcast discussion features: Dr Sian Clancy, Drug Free Sport New Zealand's (DFSNZ) General Manager Athlete Services, Alexis Cooper, Sport Integrity Australia's Director of Education and Innovation, Kelsa Ferguson, US Anti-Doping Agency's Health Professional Educator Specialist, and Cassie Fien, Sport Integrity Australia's Athlete Advisory Group member who was sanctioned for inadvertent supplement use. For the first time in over a decade in Australia, not a single athlete tested positive to a doping test due to a supplement. “We [Sport Integrity Australia] realised that we really had to change what we did and what we said,” Cooper said. “So the first thing that we did really was change our messaging. “Athletes we know are exposed to supplements. We know that some dietitians and nutritionists are telling them to take supplements and some of them are just doing it of their own accord, so we changed it to we recommend Food First. But if you have to take a supplement then you should be using a batch-tested one. That's really the only option as an athlete. And then we took the next step of creating the Sport Integrity app, which included a list of batch-tested supplements sold in Australia to make it easy for athletes to actually do that.” Inadvertent supplement positives is not an isolated problem, Ferguson said, the problem is global and wider than simply athletes. “We have cases every year that they're related to supplement use and contamination so supplement risk or a huge part of our athlete education,” she said. “There are many of health professionals out there and doctors that also aren't aware of the risks and they're recommending supplement use to athletes. And it's important for us to educate them the same way that we educate athletes on here, or the risk here where you can go and check.” Dr Clancy said DFSNZ is focusing on “understanding, I guess, the normalisation of this and the prevalence of supplement use in trying as best we can to provide those tools to athletes so that they can navigate what is a really complex environment”. Australian marathon runner Cassie Fien found out about the danger of supplements the hard way – and was sanctioned for nine months. She “still suffers from mental health issues” as a result. “I did have a choice to just go and hideaway and never go back to my sport,” she said. “But that wasn't an option for me in the sense of it's a part of my identity. It's my purpose in life and it's what brings me so much joy. Also I knew that I didn't have anything to be ashamed of… I still take responsibility for it in the sense of my maybe naivety for being not as educated as I need it to be.” Later in the program, we also talk to the Drug Free Sport New Zealand CEO Nick Paterson about his views on education, anti-doping globally and the recent announcement that New Zealand will be combining all of its sport integrity jurisdictions to be under one roof.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Witold Bańka says the agency is monitoring the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) in the wake of the war in Ukraine. Speaking on Sport Integrity Australia's On Side podcast at the WADA Global Education Conference, Bańka said the situation remained very complex.    “The fact that Russian and Belarussian athletes are not competing in internationally, at least majority of them, some of them they are able to compete as in neutral, but the majority are sanctioned, is very, very complicated,” he said.   “We decided not to close the open line of communication with RUSADA. The world cannot create a paradise for cheats.”   WADA's president believes the anti-doping system is currently working well but acknowledges there is always room for improvement.  “It's a race, you know. It's a race with the cheats,” he said. “We have to be stronger. We have to be faster. We have to have better tools to eradicate doping from sports. The rules are OK, [the] system works, but we still have to think ‘how we can do more?'” Bańka also talks about the biggest challenges WADA faces, the role education plays in WADA's development and balancing their role of catching and punishing versus protecting and supporting. We also sit down with WADA's Athlete Committee Chair Ben Sandford and 4 x Olympian and Integrity Manager for Boxing, Judo and Taekwondo Bronwen Knox to discuss the importance of the athlete's voice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we meet the science and medicine team behind our anti-doping efforts. In this episode of On Side, our host Tim Gavel talks to some of Sport Integrity Australia's science and medicine experts - Chief Science Officer Dr Naomi Speers, Science Officer Rima Chakrabarty and Medical Advisor Dr Laura Lallenec. The trio discusses all things anti-doping - prohibited substances and methods in sports, the dangers supplements pose to an athlete's career, putting the pieces of the anti-doping puzzle together, and our role working with support personnel and medical professionals to educate athletes. The evolving nature of anti-doping is part of the attraction for Dr Speers. “The challenge is keeping on top of everything that's changing,” Dr Speers says. “Different substances that people might be using and keeping aware of them and making sure that athletes are aware [of the risks], but also changing technology and understanding that and thinking about how can we apply that. “We have a Blood Passport which looks for blood doping, a Steroid Passport which looks for doping with testosterone and next year an Endocrine Passport [will be included], which will look for doping with growth hormone.” Trying to understand a doping scenario and apply it to the results is one aspect that fascinates Chakrabarty. “Is there a physiological cause for that? Is there potentially other substances that have been used, like non-prohibited substances that can cause the impact on the Steroid Passport, for example? And also is your physiology affecting it? “Have you been doing a lot of training and that's affecting your blood passport? Or have you been to a specific location, like in an altitude … It's got a lot more nuance to it." “It's really interesting just to be able to sit down and look at it, what's possible and try and put a lot more pieces together.” Dr Lallenec, who is currently Head Doctor at AFL premiership team Melbourne, joined the agency in January to provide medical guidance on sport integrity matters such as the use of prohibited substances and methods in sports, safeguarding of children in the sporting environment, as well as for investigations and intelligence matters. “I love health administration and health governance as well as public health, so it's sort of combines those two things from me.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To understand the integrity threats within sports, Sport Integrity Australia works in close partnership with everyone who holds a piece to the puzzle – including athletes. In this episode of On Side, join Tim Gavel as he chats to three of our Athlete Advisory Group (AAG) members - former Olympic rower Bronwen Downie, Paralympic triathlete Jonathan Goerlach and Blake Gaudry, a dual Olympic trampolinist. AAG chair Bronwen Downie says she wants to be part of the solution that allows young people to stay in sport. “There has to be conversations and we have to be able to hear those to understand what's actually happening in sports training centres, on sports fields and so that's where I think athlete voice is growing and it's really great to see that that is being supported through people like Sport Integrity Australia,” she says. Paralympic triathlete Jonathan Goerlach praised the “different perspectives” of the group. “The majority of the organisations and the athletes that are in sport in Australia and around the world don't have lived experience with disability and a lot of those policies and decisions that are made governing these sports don't always take into account people with disability because they don't have that lived experience.' A former trampolinist, Blake Gaudry, too, hopes his role in the Athlete Advisory Group will advance the voice of athletes within the agency. “Being on this committee, and being part of Sport Integrity Australia, I'm just keen to share those experiences and hopefully shape education and the message the right way so that in the future we can win the smart way, the safe way and, you know, the right way,” he says. “They're building a framework around member protection, child safety, and I think if we keep moving in that direction, we'll sort of see a sport that's a lot healthier, happier and athletes with the longevity that we want.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Between them, there are too many Paralympic medals to count – but the Commonwealth Games will be a unique experience for both Ellie Cole and Daniela Di Toro, for vastly different reasons. In this episode of On Side, join Tim Gavel as he chats to Ellie and Daniela as they train for the Commonwealth Games which starts on 28 July – one for the last time, the other the first. Ellie, who has six Paralympic gold medals in her trophy cabinet, races for the final time in Birmingham, chasing that elusive Commonwealth Games gold medal. “In my swimming career, over 17 years, I've won 17 Paralympic medals, broken something like five world records and I still can't seem to grasp the Commonwealth Games gold medal … it's the only thing that's missing from my trophy cabinet.” It has been a long road for the swimmer, who is thrilled at the progress Para sport has made over the past 17 years and the acceptance of Para athletes in the community. “The biggest difference that I've seen in Paralympic sport is the stigma around athletes with a disability,” Eliie says. “I saw at the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast that young kids were asking how to be Paralympians when they were older, and they were drawing pictures of people in wheelchairs on gold medal podiums. So they're drawing the parallel that you can still have a disability and be a champion. Whereas in 2006, you know, that conclusion was never drawn from seeing someone with a disability.” With retirement looming, Ellie also discussed her life after swimming, which includes her role on Sport Integrity Australia's Athlete Advisory Group. “We have a lot to offer to Sport Integrity Australia as athletes, and it's wonderful to also be the other side of the coin, see that they're willing to listen and wanting to understand firsthand experiences from us as well.” By her own admission, it's been a long time since Daniela has been called a “rookie”, having made her Paralympic Games debut in Atlanta in 1996. After all, as a wheelchair tennis player, she has won almost all there is to win in her sport: from Paralympic medals to Grand Slam titles to a number-one world ranking. Now competing as a wheelchair table tennis player, it will be the Victorian veteran's first time at the Commonwealth Games. “To be able to have a rookie experience is a really cool thing. So, you know, it's really exciting as well, the actual newness of it. I've never been on a team with able bodied and Para high performance athletes, so it's incredibly exciting,” she says. “It's the friendly games, which is really cool that you can kind get to be in this kind of environment that's super ultra-competitive, but there's real awareness of community and connection and I'm looking forward to that as well.” While she may be a senior member of the team, just don't call her the “mother-figure” – she'd prefer to be that “cool Aunty”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former West Coast Eagles captain Eric Mackenzie has been announced as the latest member of Sport Integrity Australia's Athlete Advisory Group.  In this episode of On Side, join Tim Gavel as he chats to Eric Mackenzie and Petria Thomas to talk about joining the Athlete Advisory Group, and how the group can be used to make meaningful strides in athlete education.  The 2014 John Worsfold Medallist says that his experiences as an athlete, as well as an ambassador to the International Testing Agency, have highlighted challenges in educating athletes.   “Once you're on an AFL list, trying to schedule in any time to for these education sessions is next to impossible,” Mackenzie says. “There are so many things that they have to do and when they finally get [an education session] in it's more of a box ticking exercise.  “There's no real engagement by the players. Everyone thinks they know or thinks ‘oh well that's not going to impact me', so they tune out. Often, it's done after a main training session or something all you want to do is go somewhere and go to sleep. So, you don't actually take anything in.”  Mackenzie acknowledges that there are improvements to be made and says he believes that a focus on education is crucial in preventing integrity threats from occurring.   “That's definitely where it can be improved and how it's delivered is huge, especially to the young guys. You want to be proactive not reactive. You're better off educating and preventing these things from happening.  “You look at a couple of instances lately, there's a lot of great learnings from it, but they need to be used going forward to stop things like this happening again.”   Former AAG member and now Sport Integrity Australia's Assistant Director, Petria Thomas, agrees that engaging the athlete in education is the key.  “At the end of the day, we want to prevent things from happening and education is the best way to achieve that,” she says.  The agency is working hard to roll out more informative and innovative education, she says.  “You've got to have buy in,” Thomas agrees. “You can produce all the online courses in the world but unless people are buying into it, it doesn't achieve what we want it to achieve.  “It's about finding innovative ways to get the message out to both the organisations that run sport and the member and participants in sport as well.”  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Travelling 140km/h downhill head-first on ice is not for the faint-hearted, but Jackie Narracott is no shrinking violet. After her first attempt at the sport, she asked: how do I go faster? Ahead of her second Winter Olympics, which starts in Beijing next week, Narracott talks to On Side about her switch from the track, what it's like going head-first at 140km/h, her hopes for the upcoming Games, and her impressive family pedigree. She is, after all, following in the footsteps of her famous uncle, Paul – the first Australian Olympian to compete at both Summer and Winter Games. Fast forward 10 years and Narracott, who is based in the UK, became the first Australian to win a World Cup gold medal in skeleton when she broke the track record in Switzerland a couple of weeks ago. That amazing run came in St Moritz, where she broke the track record with a time of 1:08.72 seconds to shock the field. “Everything came together, right time, right place,” she admits. “I've always known I can do it, now I've got that concrete evidence to say, ‘I'm not crazy, I can actually do it', which his nice.” Putting on the Australian jacket for the 2018 Games was “an absolute dream come true”, she says, however she feels she is “in a much better position to perform …. this time around I think it's about achieving my potential”. For his part, “Uncle Paul”, who once beat Carl Lewis over 60 metres, told On Side that he was thrilled his exploits “opened her eyes to the fact that there are sporting opportunities other than the mainstream sports”. He encourages everyone to look beyond traditional sports - like Jackie did. “It's a 10-year journey and it's only really the last 3-4 years where it's really coming together [for Jackie],” he says. “I thinks she's a real chance, she's not a favourite, but she's a realistic chance [in Beijing].” We also talk to our most successful Winter Paralympian Michael Milton, who won six gold, three silver and two bronze medals. “Snow, ice, it's magical stuff as to how much fun you can have on it,” he says. “How high you can jump. How fast you can go. For me, everything around winter sports is based on snow and ice and it's fantastic fun to do as an athlete.” He also discusses our chances at the Paralympics, the impact of Covid-19 on the Games, and how Dylan Alcott is changing society's perceptions of people with a disability. “The more people with disabilities that we see in every different area of our lives, whether it be social, whether it be work, whether it be on television as elite athletes, the more we can include people with disabilities in every single area of our life the better off society will be, the better off those people with disabilities will be.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australian swimmer Brenton Rickard's world was turned upside down when a retest of a urine sample taken at the 2012 London Olympics returned a “low-level” positive result. With his entire relay team set to be stripped of a bronze medal, Rickard talks to On Side about the difficulties in challenging the allegations eight years later - and at his own expense. Rickard, who believes an over-the-counter pharmaceutical tablet contained the banned diuretic furosemide, says he felt “hopeless” trying to prove his innocence eight years after the event. “It's just an impossible task,” he says. “We could argue the legal case of how and what transpired, but the burden of proof is very much on the defendant to show the contamination and there's just no way of doing it eight years after the fact. “When you get notified and just the sheer disbelief, but then you realise the reality is that six people were facing losing an Olympic medal from something that wasn't my fault.” The case, and others like it happening at the same time, triggered a landmark change to the World Anti-Doping Agency rules relating to the threshold of banned substances, ultimately leading to the International Olympic Committee withdrawing the charges. Rickard, who represented Australia in London 2012 and Beijing 2008, is now working with Sport Integrity Australia to help the agency better understand the impact inadvertent doping can have on an athlete's wellbeing. “As testing improves, as different processes are put in place to try to catch people who are deliberately cheating, you also need to adjust policies and rules to then not punish innocent people for things outside of their control,” he says. In this episode we also discuss the science behind low-level detections and why athlete samples are stored and re-tested with Sport Integrity Australia's Chief Science Officer Dr Naomi Speers. Dr Speers says the ability to store samples and analyse them is an important part of the anti-doping program. “It has a really significant deterrence effect,” she says. “Science and technology is constantly advancing and this means we can use the advances of technology in science in the last 10 years and apply them to samples from the past. So that means doping athletes are not only against the science and technology now, but the science and technology of the future.” Dr Speers also discusses inadvertent doping from pharmaceuticals, the dangers of supplements, the recent WADA rule changes and the major changes to the Prohibited List that will come into effect on 1 January 2022. Finally, in our segment From Left Field, our athlete educator Annabelle Cleary answers the question “Do you have a case to plea if you tested positive to batch tested supplements?” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Season 3 of On Side. We're looking forward to monthly episodes as we get ready for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing, along with the men's World Cup and the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.   Join Tim Gavel as he chats to James Johnson, Emma Johnson and Jacob Holmes, during this pivotal time in Australian sport, and hear them reflect on the potential impact they believe Football Australia's decision will have on the future of sport in this country.  Earlier this month a number of Australian female soccer players spoke out about allegations of abuse in the sport and as a result Football Australia approached Sport Integrity Australia and the National Sports Tribunal to investigate the allegations.   In this episode we look at the importance of having an independent organisation handling complaints, investigations and tribunals in Australian sport.   Football Australia CEO James Johnson was quick to recognise that an in-house approach to handling complaints was not going to be enough with the Australian community expecting a greater level of independence.   “It hit the sport like a tsunami and we had to respond quickly and I was comforted by the fact we were already in touch with Sport Integrity Australia about how we could improve in this area, so we were able to enter a partnership very quickly,” he says.   Johnson acknowledges the need to provide a forum where there can be feedback that is independent of the sport so that victims can feel comfortable and safe, without fear of their complaints impacting the future of their sporting career.   “It's about the victims. If someone is aggrieved they need to have an avenue/forum independent of us. They need to be able to talk their experience, their issue and it needs to be someone who is listening and not someone making sporting decisions.”  “There are two objectives”, says Johnson, “One is about solving the issues for the victims and secondly it's about breeding confidence back into the sport, that if there are issues, they will be dealt with.”  Deputy CEO of Sport Integrity Australia, Emma Johnson, is pleased Football Australia agreed to take on the independent complaints handling model.  “These matters are complex and a lot of sports haven't always had the capacity to deal with these things, particularly at this serious end of allegations”, she says, “So this was the best way we thought we could support them and support athletes in sport”.   “We've seen in the last twelve months a real shift and an awakening across sport that they need systems and processes in place to deal with issues like this,” she continues, “There's definitely an appetite across the board for the improvement of integrity policies and culture in sport.”   Jacob Holmes, CEO of the peak body representing Australia's elite professional athletes, the Australia Athletes Alliance, concurs.   “We all want in sport for athletes to feel supported, empowered and that they can come to a confidential body”, says Holmes.   Holmes highlights there has been a power imbalance for athletes in sport, but the new independent approach to complaints handling goes a long way to giving power back to those who may not have had it otherwise.   “We have to be better at providing those support mechanisms, a voice and a representation within the actual institutions of integrity in sport for athletes to actually feel empowered in that way,” he says.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the final edition of our Clean and Gold series of On Side, we relive the Paralympic Games highlights with the team's chief de mission Kate McLoughlin and Channel 7 commentator David Culbert. Madi de Rozario's gold and the silver to Jaryd Clifford on the final day of competition brought the team total to 21 gold, 29 silver and 30 bronze. McLoughlin tells hosts Tim Gavel and Petria Thomas that her main challenge was keeping athletes safe and “making sure they had that opportunity to perform”. This involved constant changes and reworking of scenario plans to try to ensure they were a step ahead to give athletes every opportunity to perform at their best. “They are elite athletes in every sense of the word,” she says. “They are just the same as their Olympic counterparts and they dealt with the changes and the challenges so brilliantly.” She says the whole team was “overwhelmed” with the reaction they received from home. “The fact that there was 14 hours of coverage in Australia, the fact that people were in lockdown and not able to go anywhere was a silver lining for us in a way,” she says. “…So many more eyeballs on the Paralympic team than ever before and hopefully a realisation of what an amazing team it is.” McLoughlin believes the focus on performances and not disabilities has been a gradual shift. David Culbert, a commentator for both the Olympic and Paralympic games, agrees. “At the end of the day the classification system whilst not 100% perfect in Paralympic sport, it groups like athletes with like athletes, so you can remove that element of it and just concentrate on the performance,” he says. “What times they do are only relevant to the times that they do, so therefore you need to know their personal bests, their season's best, the Paralympic records…” He says the Games offered a glimpse of hope for people with a disability and their parents. “The interesting thing about the Paralympics is that there would be a lot of parents that would be worried about their young children who have got a disability, whether it's congenital or whether it's acquired, they would be watching that and thinking that's there's nothing my son or daughter can't do…” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode of Clean and Gold celebrates the Paralympic Games – an event that is so often referred to as “more than sport”. Hosted by Tim Gavel and three-time Olympic gold medallist Petria Thomas, this edition features Paralympic mentor and former Australian head coach Chris Nunn and Paralympic hopeful, swimmer Ahmed Kelly. Nunn, who works as a consultant with the Oceania Paralympic Committee, says due to a lack of resources, many of the emerging countries that he has been mentoring will not be able to make it to the Games. “We are a country of haves,” he says. “We have as many resources as we can get and I've worked in countries that have had nothing and invested a lot of time and effort that are not be going to the Paralympic Games. “They cannot get there or get back without a five-week quarantine. These people have a minimal amount of work and just can't afford to do that.” Nunn, who has opted not to go to Tokyo for the Games but will coach remotely, laments the direction the Paralympics has taken and says it's now a landscape “for the less disability you have the higher chance of you being selected to represent your country”. “The disappointing part of where Paralympic sport has gone is that fact that we are now doing everything we can to chase the medal,” he says. “It's gone away from the initial concept of what the Games is all about.” While he admits he is somewhat “disillusioned”, Nunn says he will always be an advocate for an equal playing field for all. “I will never deny an athlete a chance to be the best they can be, and never deny a coach the access to education that will help them produce a better athlete, but, boy, we've still got some hurdles to overcome in Para sport in terms of getting the right group of athletes there to showcase Para sport.” Kelly, who made his Paralympic debut at the London Games in 2012, was born in Baghdad with under-developed arms and legs – not uncommon in countries torn by chemical warfare. He was adopted at the aged of seven by an Australia women and is now competing in his third Games. Kelly admits it's “going to be one of the strangest Games that I'm going to be a part of but as long as I get to wear the green and gold and the gold cap I'll be pretty happy”. While he may be inspiring others, he finds others with similar difficulties equally inspiring. “To be able to see how people with a disability get around and do their own business that also inspires me to do better,” he says. “I want people who have a disability or who look just like me, to know they have just as amount of opportunity to be able to be successful, whether it's in life or in the pool. I want them to give it a crack because if you don't give it a crack, you will never know.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was billed as “the Olympics the world had to have” and it certainly delivered. This episode of Clean and Gold looks back at the Games' highlights and features two of our gold medallists, rowers Lucy Stephan and Alex Purnell. Stephan, who grew up in Nhill - a town with no water for years, says she was “prepared for anything” when her races were delayed by an approaching typhoon. “I think, honestly, it's kind of like, ‘ok, what else have we got,” says Stephen, who won the coxless four event alongside Rosemary Popa, Jessica Morrison and Annabelle McIntyre. Being the first Olympic gold medallist from a town of less than 2000 people, one of the things she's looking forward to the most is heading home and sharing it with the school kids. “You don't have the luxury of seeing those people around you often go off and do sport and amazing things, especially a sport like rowing,” she says. “This [gold medal] may help push and guide those young kids to help them achieve their goals, whatever they may be.” Fellow gold medallist Alex Purnell says the lack of international competition may have played in their favour. “I think it was an advantage for us,” he says. “It was nice that there was no real form guide so we could fly under the radar, do our thing and it ended up working out well for us and we managed to cross the line in front.” Alongside men's four crew mates Alex Hill, Spencer Turrin and Jack Hargreaves, they held off a fast-finishing Romania to win gold, ending Great Britain's dominance in the event since the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The foursome dug deep for inspiration and drew on the Raiders for strength. “At that point when everything is hurting so much you try and draw inspiration from somewhere and just try and find an extra something,” he says. “Over the last 100 it was ‘Raiders, Raiders, Raiders!” And the prospect of Paris 2023? Both admit it's definitely “tempting” that's for sure. ABC commentator Glen Mitchell, a veteran of four Olympic Games, admits he was ambivalent in the lead-in the Tokyo Games given the lack of crowds and the fact the majority of the Japanese didn't want them to go ahead. “I was pleasantly surprised how watching the Olympic Games, it [lack of a crowd] didn't really stand out to me so much, it changed my perception in some ways to have crowds at venues,” he says. While highlights included watching Jess Fox and Peter Bol race, Mitchell also enjoyed the camaraderie of the athletes, particularly those competing in the new Olympic sports of skateboarding and BMX riding. “I thought that was really heart-warming the way the youngsters reacted to their competitors that had actually had a bad run, it's not the sort of thing you're used to seeing at the Olympics competition.” Finally former Olympian Ben Hardy, a Sport Integrity Australia's Intelligence Analyst, shares his top tips for competing clean. Hosted by Tim Gavel and three-time Olympic gold medallist Petria Thomas See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted by Tim Gavel and three-time Olympic gold medallist Petria Thomas, this blockbuster edition of our Clean And Gold series features champion sprinter Raelene Boyle, four-time Olympian Bronwen Knox and dual Olympic and Paralympic table tennis player Milly Tapper. Raelene burst on to the scene at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico as a 16-year-old, taking home a silver medal in the 200m sprint. She went on to win silver medals in the 100m and 200m sprints in Munich, only for it to be later revealed that she was cheated out of gold in what remains one of the greatest travesties in the history of Australian sport. “I look back at it and I just hope that people don't remember me for those things or remember me as an athlete for those things, or for whingeing,” she says. “I've never really whinged about it it's just what happened, it is what it was and there's an awful lot more to my career than that.” She remains divided over the suggestion of a retrospective gold medal. “It would be nice to have a gold medal but I wasn't first over the line,” she says. “I don't know, there's different ways to view it, you could say Renate Stecher was loaded with testosterone and sure a male is always going to beat a female over the distances that I ran….oh, I don't know, I don't know how I feel about it.” She also talks about integrity in sport, the evolving Olympic Games, her battles with cancer and, showing her trademark sense of humour, Raelene insists she can “still push out a bit of weight for a grey headed old bag”. Dual Olympic bronze medallist Bronwen Knox is preparing for her fourth Olympic campaign, one much different to her previous campaigns. In the absence of international competition for 18 months, the Sport Integrity Australia athlete educator says the Stingers are “just going in solely focussing on what we need to do….having that focus solely on us and what we can control”. Bronwen admits returning to the pool after COVID was more difficult than she had anticipated. “… having that really long break during the first COVID lockdown and not being able to train, it sort of took everyone by surprise ….there was nothing in place for us to stay engaged, stay involved, to stay in shape. Being an older athlete the body sorts of disintegrates on you and getting back and try to start again there was just roadblock after roadblock.” At Rio, Milly Tapper made history by becoming the first Australian athlete to qualify for both the Olympics and Paralympics. Milly, who has an injury that causes paralysis of the arm, started playing table tennis in 2002 while she was still at primary school. Regardless of the competition, she treats everybody the same. “Everyone that I compete again is turning up and trying to play their best to win,” she says. “Every athlete that you play has a different strength, a different weakness, regardless if it's able bodied or Para, you still need to find a way to be able to win the point. For me, it's exactly the same approach.” Her first venture into the competitive Paralympic world was an eye-opener – as a youngster she didn't know that the Paralympics existed. “When I went into this international stage, some had one arm, one leg, no legs … The only thing I did notice was every athlete's ability to play table tennis….. they can find a way regardless to get on the job and play table tennis amazingly.” Finally, former Sydney 2000 Olympic rower Kerry Knowler, our Assistant Director Anti-Doping, shares her top tips for competing clean. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted by Tim Gavel and three-time Olympic gold medallist Petria Thomas, this Clean And Gold episode features two-time Paralympic gold medallist Chris Bond and Olympic gold medallist Kim Brennan (nee Crow). Bond, whowas 19 when he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia which resulted in amputation of both his legs below the knee, says it was the power of sport that helped him adjust to life with prosthetic limbs. “Sport's great at that,” he says. “It always has competition, year on year, and milestones in terms of testing and fitness and performance and that kind of thing. You go incrementally. You've got something to look forward to, something to compete at which has helped stay positive.” Bond also reminisces about being part of the “best wheelchair rugby match ever”, a double overtime win against Team USA to become a back-to-back Paralympic gold medallist, retirement, and the legacy he hopes to leave when his playing days are over. For Brennan, she says striving for Olympic gold changed her life. “Sport teaches you a huge amount of who you are and what you believe in,” she says. “The medal is wonderful, but it's the journey and striving that went into the medal that actually made me the person that I am and has given me opportunities beyond the rowing course.” Brennan, who won gold in the women's single scull after leading the race from start to finish, believes the athletes that adjust best to living in a bubble will succeed in Tokyo. “There's going to be a lot of idle times sitting in rooms, and that's something that those we are prepared and are comfortable in their own thoughts I think are going to be the ones who really relish the opportunity to get out there.” To wrap it up our athlete educator Bronwen Knox, soon to be a 4-time Olympian, gives her top tips for competing clean. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At On Side we are celebrating the impending Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo with a special Clean and Gold series. Hosted by Tim Gavel and three-time Olympic gold medallist Petria Thomas, our Clean And Gold series features some of Australia's Olympic and Paralympic greats about their Olympic journey. Today we speak to two-time Olympic gold medallist Anna Meares and Paralympic gold medallist Curtis McGrath. By her own admission Meares has come a long way from that little girl riding a BMX bike, winning two Olympic gold medals eight years apart. Her story is one of resilience, with her fighting spirit instrumental in coming back from breaking her neck in a horrific crash at a World Cup meet in Los Angeles to winning an Olympic silver medal just seven months later. She is the only female track cyclist in history to have won Olympic medals in all four sprint events –  keirin, sprint, team sprint and the 500m time trial (discontinued) – but, surprisingly, her proudest moment is off the track. “My proudest moment was being flag bearer in Rio … I feel like that was in recognition of the accumulation of performances over a long time, being consistent over 16 years being at the elite senior level, being at the Olympics and world championships every year and being on the podium,” she says. McGrath, too, has battled back from the most agonising of circumstances. He took up canoeing as part of his rehabilitation after having both of his legs amputated as a result of a mine blast whilst serving in the Australian Army in Afghanistan. When he was being carried on the stretcher in Afghanistan he told his comrades that he would go to the Paralympics. “I didn't say that with much substance and much knowledge of what that actually meant,” he says, “but it was a comment to try and ease the minds of the guys around me, they were also going through a pretty traumatic experience.” It makes his para-canoe gold medal at Rio all the more poignant. “I think that's part of the reason why I pursued the Paralympic journey not for my own goals and mindset but to show that I was still capable and still able to get out there and do things and be a part of something so great as the Paralympic Games.” However, the aftermath of that gold-medal race was not as he expected. “[When I crossed the line] I expected to be excited and a huge sense of joy and excitement that I'd achieved that but what I actually got was this huge wave of relief … I almost physically felt it. It was like this wave that fell on me, the relief of going through what I went through over those four years and culminating to crossing that line and being a gold medallist is one that I didn't expect whatsoever.” To wrap things up, Sport Integrity Australia's medical adviser Dr Larissa Trease, an Australian Olympic and Paralympic team doctor, gives her top tips on competing clean. #cleanandgold See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Players, coaches, commentators, fans ... when you're a match official, everyone has an opinion about your performance on the field. In the latest episode of On Side we talk to retired Australian football referee Ben Williams, who had a 25-year career in the sport, NRL touch judge Kasey Badger, and Grant Jones, whose path to officialdom was unusual to say the least, about the pressures faced by sporting officials. Once Australia's No.1 football official, Williams has seen everything during his time calling the shots. But there's one match that stands out – for all the wrong reasons. While officiating the Asian Cup quarter-final between arch-rivals Iran and Iraq at Canberra Stadium in 2015, Williams issued 12 yellow cards and one red. “That match had absolutely everything … a send-off can change a match, at the same time cheating can change a match as well,” he said. The match was decided in a penalty shoot-out but resulted in death threats to Williams and his family. “For me that's too far… my family's off limits.” He also talks about bribes - the offer of women and secret brown paper bags being left at his hotel door - and the importance of credibility – “it's your currency after all”. For Badger, whose ultimate goal remains refereeing an NRL match, it's the challenges officiating poses that attracts her. “No two games are alike,” Badger says, “No two situations are alike. You're continually learning, you're continually challenged and you need to make decisions quickly, you don't have time to really think and process and take your time to weigh things up, you have to do things very instinctively and that was something that really appealed to me.” While she admits negativity and criticism goes with the territory, it's “a catch 22” being a female in such a male-dominated industry. By his own admission, Grant Jones's path to refereeing is “embarrassing”. “I'm embarrassed to say I would have a crack at referees and that sort of thing and I'd always be embarrassed afterwards,” he says. When he fronted the judiciary in 2017 for his comments to the touch judge, he was given a simple punishment - he had to referee some junior matches. And the rest is history. The reaction from his friends? “A lot of them would argue that you always thought you knew the laws of the game so it's only natural that you decided to do it yourself.” Our athlete educator Laura Brittain answers the question, “What is an athlete biological passport and how do you use it?.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is growing evidence that multiple concussions may increase the risk of experiencing a range of diseases and cognitive impairments later in life. In latest episode of On Side we talk to former Wallabies player Peter FitzSimons, whose personal crusade against concussion started 15 years ago, Alan Pearce, Associate Professor at La Trobe University and Research Manager at Australian Sports Brain Bank (Victoria), and Paralympian Michael Milton about concussion in sport. While he admits there has been “huge progress” within the contact codes, FitzSimons says the rules are still flaunted every week. “…When you see someone clearly concussed, clearly gaga, still getting HIA (head injury assessments), which is let’s see if they’re concussed or not, and then so often they come back on the field …. Can you tell us what is was?” he asks. “Why he was wobbling at the knees, wandering all over the place. But you’ve done the head injury assessment, it wasn’t concussion, what was it? I tell you Tim we will see those cases show up in court 10 years from now. “Professional football codes have to get serious about observing the protocols.” Associate Professor Pearce, a neurophysiologist, says while sports are now starting to take concussion seriously, in terms of the long-term outcomes, there’s still a hesitancy to accept the science. “We never thought that we’d get 12 day stand down with the AFL until this year,” he said. “It’s all about small steps, it’s all about changing the attitudes of the wider community to concussion or sub-concussions, taking the injury more seriously… We will still keep calling for changes because we know that the long-term welfare will pay off in the end.” Our most success Paralympian with six gold, three silver and two bronze medals, Milton admits he competed in a different era – often without a helmet. Crashes were “a part of the sport” says the Australian downhill skiing speed record holder. “[The impacts of those crashes] is certainly a concern going forward,” he admits. “When I start to think about skiing over 6,000 days in my life, averaging a crash at least once a day, you start adding up and thinking there’s probably pretty high numbers of multiple impacts that potentially could have an issue in the future.” Our athlete educator Hayley Baker answers the question, “Do repeat offenders face tougher sanctions?”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The dearth of women in leadership and in high performance coaching roles is still a problem in sport. In latest episode of On Side we talk to former Sport Australia CEO Kate Palmer on the gulf in parity that still exists in high performance sport and what needs to be done to help women transition into these roles. Palmer says sports need to take a “proactive approach” to, not just equality, but diversity in general. “The reality is that sport is not immune to society,” Palmer says. “Sport reflects all that’s great about society, and all of the things that are bad about society. “Sport can play a role [in promoting women and diversity] because on the whole it’s very public so we can show best practice to other industries and other organisations.” She says thinking about diversity more broadly is really important. “I think acknowledging the differences and including everyone in the decision making is really important, and that goes beyond gender, that goes into multi-cultural areas too, indigenous areas, to disability, everyone, putting a voice around the table for all.” We also talk to Commonwealth Games gold medallist Cara Honeychurch, who has a unique perspective as both an athlete and an administrator. “I have to say I had a very positive experience throughout my whole life, I’ve never really felt that being a women has held me back,” Honeychurch, one of Australia’s most successful ten pin bowlers, says. “My sport of tenpin bowling has always been very inclusive, and very welcoming of women.” Honeychurch, who is now General Manager of Corporate Services at Athletics Australia, says she is “very aware” her experience is “very much the exception” rather than the norm. And in our segment From the Highlight Reel, we re-live the 400m freestyle event at the Athens Olympic Games through the lens of Ian Thorpe’s coach – Tracey Menzies. Menzies says she faced criticism for having a coaching philosophy that differed from her (mostly male) peers. “Sometimes there has been a bit of a criticism that I’ve shown too much empathy for people and compassion but I sort of wear that as a badge of honour now, that I actually have that vulnerability that I’m prepared to show who I am and care for the athlete,” she says. “Having the capacity to hear what we say, and to understand, if we do things a little differently, that’s ok. Not everyone has to coach the same way, behave the same way, and different is actually good.” In the segment From Left Field our athlete educator Annabelle Cleary answers the question, “Do coaches get in trouble if an athlete tests positive?” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One in three elite athletes report experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression at some time during or post their sporting career. In the seventh and latest episode of On Side, we examine the prevalence of mental health issues in sport, sports’ duty of care to ensure the wellbeing of athletes and what’s being done to address these issues. We talk to Clinical Psychologist Mary Spillane, and our Olympic heroes, basketballer Rachael Sporn and swimmer Daniel Kowalski, about their own battles with mental health. Spillane, who is part of the AIS’s world-leading mental health referral network, says the stigma around mental health is changing. “Certainly, in the work that I’ve done, females are much more likely to access support for mental health but we know that males are increasingly starting to access that support,” she says. “There’s a lot more awareness out there now about mental health symptoms, what people might experience, so generally we think that people might actually be more likely to get help.” Two-time Olympic silver medallist Sporn, who fought back from a knee injury simply to play in Sydney in 2000, battled her own demons after Australia lost the Olympic gold medal play-off. “When we won silver you’ve lost your final match, who celebrates that in the normal world,” she says. Losing can also have far-reaching ramifications for many athletes or teams, Sporn adds. “It goes beyond that personal failure, then Basketball Australia doesn’t get that funding because we didn’t finish well, far-reaching when you are playing for Australia at an international level because you are thinking about those things as a player because moving forward that funding was so important.” Daniel Kowalski, who has four Olympic medals to his name, ponders the question, “How do you drop your guard and show an element of vulnerability that doesn’t compromise performance?” If he could have any of his swims over again it would be the 400m freestyle, he says, “because I had that perfect combination of speed and endurance, it was what sat between my ears that let me down”. In our segment From the Highlight Reel, we re-live the 1500m freestyle event at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic, where Daniel snatched silver. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This highlight edition of our podcast On Side features our chat with AIS Chief Medical Officer Dr David Hughes on inclusion in sport following last year’s release of the Guidelines for the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport. Dr Hughes says transgender and gender diversity is not a sport issue, it’s a societal issue. “It’s important that sport at all time reflects societal changes, and moves with societal changes,” Dr Hughes says. Three-time Paralympian Michael Roeger has dreamed of winning gold for his country - ever since he was a young boy growing up in Langhorne Creek. Michael talks about the Tokyo 2020 setback given his “hot” start to the year and why he thinks Paralympians are less likely to dope than their Olympic counterparts. Each month we celebrate one of the great moments in Australian sport in our segment From The Highlight Reel. This time we relive the 1989 Rugby League Grand Final - regarded by many as the greatest of all time - with try scorer Steve Jackson. Jackson, the self-confessed naughty boy who rather than dip his toe in the water would dive head-first, admits he played and lived his dream. He also talks about his transformation and how he now uses his own experiences to help young people. Our final guest is Australian marathon runner Cassie Fien, who was preparing for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games before she was banned for nine months after taking a supplement. It’s a powerful story. She talks about the devastating moment she was told she was banned and the impacts that ban had on her career and her life. Her sanction had a far-reaching impact. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this highlight edition of our podcast On Side we take a peek at some of the best interviews so far. This includes our chat with 2008 and 2012 Paralympic cycling gold medallist Michael Gallagher. Prior to the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, Gallagher tested positive for recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO) at a training camp in Italy. Still under sanction, Gallagher talked about the biggest impact his sanction had on him and what drove him to “cross a dark line”. How far has women’s sport come? Events like Australia's Twenty20 World Cup with a crowd of 90,000 in March suggest a long way. We discussed parity in sport - where we’ve come from and what still needs to be done - with one of our greatest sportswomen Heather McKay, one of our greatest basketball coaches Carrie Graf and up-and-coming basketball star Keely Froling. Today we highlight Carrie’s views. Also featured is part of our interview with Gold Coast Commonwealth Games heroes Eloise Wellings and Madeline Hills who, along with Celia Sullohern, created one of the highlights of the Games when they waited for Lineo Chaka at the finish line – an act of sportsmanship that was beamed around the globe. Finally, we take another listen to some of the best moments of our interview with Katrina Fanning, an Indigenous champion and rugby league legend. We reflect on her illustrious career, the issue of racism within sports and the role sport plays in reducing barriers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cricket icon Belinda Clark has blazed her way into the record books and is just as fearless off the field, paving a way for women in sport. In the sixth and latest episode of On Side Clark, the first player, male or female, to score a double century in a one-dayer, talks about the highlights of an illustrious career – on and off the field – and the rise and rise of women’s sport. “I’d like to think that cricket has been at the front of the pack pulling others with us but there’s still a long way to go,” Clark says. “I’d like to think the next generation of young girls hopefully will grow up knowing very well from the beginning of their life that sport is an option for them as a profession, it’s an option for them as a coach, as a volunteer, and it’ll be a totally different perspective that I perhaps grew up with.” Inaugural AFLW premiership coach Bec Goddard is another trailblazer for women’s sport. Just announced as the spearhead of an all-female coaching panel for Hawthorn Football Club’s VFLW team, Goddard has been fighting the male bias for years. “There is a very frustrating issue at this level,” she says. “It’s this idea of merit and what we define as merit in our industry. So many women are qualified, that have got certificates …. at the decision making level they are getting blocked by these biases.” We also talk to our Director of Anti-Doping Policy Chris Butler about the changes to the 2021 WAD Code, including those around substances of abuse and our athlete educator Riley McGown answers the question “Are paralympic athletes subject to the same ant-doping rules?” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A self-confessed adrenaline addict with the injuries to prove it – Caroline Buchanan is held together by bolts, wires, plates … you name it. For a decade this eight-time World Champion was at the top, but is now in unfamiliar territory - as the underdog. In the fifth and latest episode of On Side, Buchanan candidly talks about building not only her brand but her sport, her triumphs, struggles, THAT accident, and why now is the best time to be a female in action sport. We also re-live one of the greatest moments in Australian sport – John Aloisi’s penalty goal against Uruguay which cemented Australia’s spot in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, and chat to Paralympian Chad Perris, a bronze medallist in the 100m event at the Rio Olympics, about his career so far and his other “side gig” – sports commentating. Known for her tenacity and down-to-earth attitude, Buchanan is not only an incredible athlete (in three cycling disciplines), she’s a successful business woman, social media influencer and mentor. “A really big goal of mine, initially, was to make the sport known, so help get it on mainstream TV, so when it was footy on a Monday after they’ve had their weekend games I was paying a media liaison to help package my world cup win and BMX was packaged at the same time,” she says. “A lot of money that I invested back in to not only building the sport, building my own brand, it was 5-7 years of really putting everything back in to make this momentum happen, to be able to be this full-time athlete.” Coming back from an off-road accident that nearly killed her, Buchanan admits she has “seen both sides of being an elite athlete in Australia”. Aloisi’s famous penalty goal was voted by the Sport Australia Hall of Fame committee as one of the three greatest sporting moments in Australian history. He says he is asked about it almost daily when in Australia. “[People] remember where they were, what they were doing, whether they were at the game, or in a pub or at home, and I’ve heard some funny stories, it’s a special moment that I was lucky to be a part of,” Aloisi says. With only 5-8% vision, World championship silver medallist Perris says he’s constantly proving himself against the doubters. “I used to play Aussie Rules footy, and as a junior I went in there and I wore sunnies and a hat when I played and you’d always get people questioning why is this guy [playing], how can this guy play this when he can’t see, I’ve dealt with it all my life,” Perris says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guests: Eloise Wellings, Madeline Hills, Michael Crooks, Carrie Graf, Keely Froling & Heather McKay. How far has women’s sport come? Events like Australia's Twenty20 World Cup with a crowd of 90,000 in March suggest a long way. In episode four of our Sport Integrity Australia podcast ‘On Side’, we discuss parity in sport - where we’ve come from and what still needs to be done - with one of our greatest sportswomen Heather McKay, one of our greatest basketball coaches Carrie Graf and up-and-coming basketball star Keely Froling. We also chat to Baseball Australia’s General Manager Performance Pathways & Player Development, Michael Crooks, about the sport’s challenges – funding, match fixing, differences in anti-doping in the Major League - and creating pathways for young athletes dreaming big in the US. Finally, we talk to Gold Coast Commonwealth Games heroes Eloise Wellings and Madeline Hills who, along with Celia Sullohern, created one of the highlights of the Games when they waited for Lineo Chaka at the finish line, and triple Olympian Bronwen Knox answers the question “If one person in a team tests positive, does the whole team get tested?” A leading advocate for the equality in sport, Graf says there needs to be a shift in the thinking of what is a Return On Investment “rather than just commercial and eye balls”. “I was a little girl who grew up when there wasn’t any role models and you couldn’t aspire to work as a professional athlete, as a coach,” she says. “l was fortunate to have a professional coaching career for 20-plus years, I think we’re certainly seeing a shift that little girls can look on TV and look around the media and go ‘wow, I could do this a job’, and that that is a legitimate job but I still think there is a long, long way to go.” Froling, who has two brothers currently playing in the National Basketball League, says she often compares the rewards. “I look at what the boys get and what they’re doing and I think, ‘oh, it’s so annoying’ … we work just as hard if not harder than them and aren’t rewarded in the same way.” It’s certainly a long way from when McKay, a winner of 16 British Opens in a row, competed as an amateur, having to take two months off work without pay simply to play. As an amateur she says she played “for fun” and without the pressure athletes’ face now. “Today the pressure is there, the big money’s there, so when the money is there, certainly there is going to be a lot of pressure because you’ve got to perform and that’s really the difference between today and in my time. It’s their full-time job.” With significant contracts up for grabs for young baseballers overseas, Crooks is trying to develop right path for talented young players. “Managing the workloads and expectations for these young players is really, really critical to make sure that they get the most of their opportunity when they do finally get over to the United States as opposed to sending them over as a 16-year-old with no support mechanisms, no safety nets for them and basically leaving them to the wolves so to speak to try and survive in what is an incredible cut-throat world of professional sport,” Crooks says. In our From The Highlight Reel segment Australian 10,000m runners Eloise Wellings and Madeline Hills relive an act of sportsmanship that was beamed around the globe. “We were just doing what we would always do in any other race and it just so happened that there was a whole lot of cameras and a whole lot of people watching,” says Wellings, who concedes her own run was “one of the worst” of her career. “It takes vulnerability to finish a race like that for Lineo when things aren’t going well to run the last three laps on your own. As Madeline said you are very exposed and it’s a vulnerable thing to be in.” Madeline, agrees. “We’ve all had that day,” she says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever since he was a young boy growing up in Langhorne Creek, three-time Paralympian Michael Roeger has dreamed of winning gold for his country. In Sport Integrity Australia’s third edition of its podcast ‘On Side’ Michael talks about the Tokyo 2020 setback given his “hot” start to the year, his penchant for making up stories about how he “lost” part of his arm, his first sporting love, and why he thinks Paralympians are less likely to dope than their Olympic counterparts. We also chat to Australian Dolphin Jessica Hansen on her recent move to Canberra, what drives her to get out of bed to train each morning and her role as a Sport Integrity Australia athlete educator. Finally, we look back at what is regarded by many as the greatest NSW Rugby League grand final of all time and our athlete educator, swimmer Hayley Baker, answers the question ‘Are anti-depressants banned in sport?’ Roeger, who was born without the lower part of his right arm, believes the feeling he had when he beat the 1500m world record in Boston in 2015 “would be worth $1million” and is “his greatest achievement” after coming close to the feat multiple times. He now focuses on the most gruelling event in athletics – the marathon – to which he holds the T46 marathon world record and says the postponement of Tokyo 2020 was especially disappointing because he was in the best form of his career.   “It was one hit after the other,” he says. “I really did feel that 2020 was my year; mentally, physically; I feel like I had all my competitors covered. I was mentally ready, physically [ready], I felt I could’ve done anything this year and that’s been taken away from me…the tough thing is fitness, health one year is not guaranteed the next.” In our From The Highlight Reel segment we look back at the 1989 NSW Rugby League grand final regarded by many as the greatest of all time and speak to Steve Jackson, who sealed the win for the Canberra Raiders with a try in extra time. Jackson, the self-confessed naughty boy who rather than dip his toe in the water would dive head-first, admits he played and lived his dream. He also talks about his transformation and how he now uses his own experiences to help young people. Our guest Australian Dolphin breaststroker Jessica Hansen is not a morning person. It may take three alarms but gets out of bed to train “because I know that when I go to training I can improve something or work on something, there’s always something to get away from this session to help me achieve my goals”. Tokyo 2021, watch out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Commonwealth Games Australia’s chief executive officer Craig Phillips is the most capped Olympic team official in Australian sporting history and has 35 years’ experience in the sports industry. In Sport Integrity Australia’s second edition of its podcast ‘On Side’ we discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the sporting calendar, on planning the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, and on sports very survival. We also discuss the dangers of supplements with Australian marathon runner Cassie Fien, who was banned for nine months after the supplement she was taking unknowingly contained a banned substance, and talk to Australian women’s 100m record holder Melissa Breen on breaking that 20-year record. Finally, our athlete educator Annabelle Cleary answers the question ‘Is there a minimum age for being tested and being banned from sport?’ While Phillips says his organisation hasn’t felt a commercial impact from COVID just yet, he admitted COVID-19 has disrupted 2022 Commonwealth Games preparations (resulting in three athlete villages) and was concerned about the solvency of some Commonwealth sports. He was also enthused about a packed calendar which will see the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Winter Games, various world championships and the Commonwealth Games all held within 12 months. “It’s never happened ever, for anybody, at any time,” Phillips says. “We see this wonderful opportunity for Australian sport…for Australians to get behind athletes wearing that green and gold for that 12-month window.” Australian marathon runner Cassie Fien was preparing for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games before she was banned for nine months after taking a supplement. She talks about the devastating moment she was told she was banned and the impacts that ban had on her career and her life. “I couldn’t eat or drink or anything for nearly 3 days,” she said after being told her sample contained a prohibited substance. “I guess I felt sort of numb, and like something had been ripped out of me. I couldn’t really, I didn’t know how I was going to keep living.” She says her sanction had a far-reaching impact. “It didn’t just affect me, it affected my friends, my family. It’s not just the athlete that suffers, it’s everyone around them. If I could just reach out to even one athlete to just go, ‘I probably don’t need to take what I’m taking’, then that’s my job done.” See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Katrina Fanning is an Australian women’s sport pioneer, an Indigenous champion and rugby league legend. On Sport Integrity Australia’s first edition of it’s podcast ‘On Side’ we discuss Fanning’s illustrious career, the issue of racism within sports and the role sport plays in reducing barriers. We also discuss proposed changes to supplement regulation with Sport Integrity Australia’s Chief Science Officer Dr Naomi Speers and the Therapeutic Goods Administrations’ Dr Adam Cook and talk to our Deputy CEO (acting) Emma Johnson about her stunning Olympic Games debut as a 15-year-old in the segment From The Highlight Reel. To wrap up, our athlete educator Riley McGown answers the question: “How long do substances stay in your system? Katrina’s fascination for rugby league comes from growing up in Junee, a country town where “rugby league is all anyone talks about”. “I was just lucky that in my age group of boys in Junee there wasn’t too many boys that wanted to play … The first year the boys weren’t so sure about it [playing with a girl] – I don’t think they passed me the ball once, so I learned to tackle pretty well.” She says playing rugby league gave her a sense of belonging, of acceptance, and the lessons she learned from sport can be transferred to all aspects of life. While she acknowledges “silent barriers” when she was growing up, Fanning says she was lucky living in Junee was “a much easier road than it has been for many Aboriginal and Torres Islander people”. “Whilst my experience wasn’t perfect it certainly is a lot further along the way to the Australia I aspire for us to have, that I want Australia to be, and it proves that it is possible with good will, and certainly sport played a big role in that.” An advocate for the women’s game and indigenous community pathways, Fanning has been encouraged by the stance taken by some of our national sporting teams and associations and player-led movements against racism. “I think it’s really important for people to see that all Australians should be offended when there’s racism or discrimination… we like to believe this country is built on a fair go and if you put in the effort and you’ve got the talent you will get your just reward, well, we have to live that, not just say it.” She also discusses her role on Sport Integrity Australia’s Athlete Advisory Group, the Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘win-at-all-costs’ attitude that prevails. “I get to catch up with lots of former athletes now and I can’t think of the last time when any one of them raised their win-loss record, their fastest times … [sporting success] shouldn’t be the only way you measure how successful you are as a person.” Fanning, who played for Australia in the first ever women’s rugby league Test in 1995, says being labelled a “pioneer” doesn’t sit well with her as there were “decades of peoples’ hard work and sacrifice” beforehand. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

The National Sports Tribunal CEO John Boultbee says the tribunal is an “overdue” opportunity for sporting bodies, athletes and support personnel. “It’s the first time Australia has had its own Sports Tribunal to hear all matters from all sports and to be at arm’s length from the sports and provide an independent and transparent service,” Boultbee says. The highly respected senior sports administrator and lawyer says the tribunal provides a cost-effective, efficient, independent and transparent avenue for the resolution of sporting disputes. The tribunal will hear anti-doping violations, disciplinary disputes, selection and eligibility disputes, and matters relating to bullying, harassment and discrimination. “We have 40 tribunal members, they are the people who will hear cases and conduct mediations in the tribunal,” Boultbee says. “They come from outside of Government, they come from outside of sports organisations and some even from outside of sports, so they are truly independent and not appointed by sports that might be a party to the dispute.” Panel members include former athletes, sports administrators and experts in specialist areas such as anti-doping and medicine. The tribunal will run on an opt-in basis. For those sports that already have a tribunal, Boultbee says athletes can choose to use the NST or retain their current system. The creation of the Tribunal, along with Sport Integrity Australia, was identified in the Wood Review as part of a whole package of governance reforms designed to protect athletes and sport. In our segment, “So I was wondering” our Senior Education Officer Cheryl Kalthofen explains why ASADA does not approve or endorse any supplements.

With Sport Integrity Australia opening to the public on July 1, new Chief Executive Officer David Sharpe talks about the dangers sports will face in the future in the latest episode of OnSide. Sharpe admits there are a “lot of challenges ahead”, particularly in the current COVID-19 climate. “If you took me back three or four months ago, I would have said the greatest threats in sport are organised crime infiltrating sport and vulnerabilities in sport,” Sharpe says, “but right at the moment I think the immediate threat that has been exposed is the fact that the COVID virus has led to an economic downturn in sport and staff have been reduced across education, integrity and welfare units and I think that really has exposed some major vulnerabilities across sporting bodies.” He says the loss of structure in athletes’ day-to-day lives poses potential problems, too. “Athletes and sporting bodies have very structured organisations; athletes are told when to arrive, when to sleep, when to eat, when to train, and what goes into their body, without that supervision on a day-to-day basis it really exposes them to vulnerabilities around making decisions that they don’t normally, or haven’t normally, had to make. “From that, it opens up opportunities for organised crime to go in and exploit them and use that to their benefit in betting markets.” Sport Integrity Australia will oversee integrity issues such as the manipulation of sporting competitions, use of drugs and doping methods, abuse, bullying, and discrimination in sport, however Sharpe says the organisation will not work alone. Also on On Side, Steve Northey, our Assistant Director - Sport Operations, answers the question from the public about athletes being tested while overseas.

This episode features two of our Doping Control state managers John Rhodes (Victoria) and Alissa Ready (Queensland). John and Alisa commenced their newly created roles in July to be a conduit between the Canberra office, regional staff and sports. John, who has a background in anti-corruption, says the perception of ASADA of the past has been “misrepresented” and is happy to see this perception has changed in recent times. Alisa agreed. She said that ASADA was seen as the “bad guy” but is much more athlete-centric now, helping athletes to comply with the rules. “The DCO and chaperones are going out and really trying to engage with athletes and the [sporting] organisations and trying to educate them, while waiting for athletes to produce a sample,” she said. “DCOs and chaperones play a key education role, they educate athletes about supplements, medications; it’s about helping athletes and enabling them.” John added: “The professional standing of our operators in the field is really first class.” In the “So I was wondering…” segment, our Director of Legal answers a question from the public, this week it’s “What is prohibited association?”

While COVID-19 has shut down sport in Australia and around the world, ASADA’s CEO David Sharpe says our role in protecting sport is “more critical than ever”. “There’s a lot of pressure on athletes and right now, more than ever, ASADA’s role is to look at the environment and ensure that we are still able to effectively protect the environment for the future of sport,” Sharpe says. It’s important to understand that testing is only one component of what ASADA does to protect the integrity of sport, Sharpe says. “It [our role] is multi-faceted,” he says. “At the moment, while testing has reduced, we still have the capacity to identify any significant threats or areas where we may need to conduct testing. “We are constantly assessing and constantly replanning our testing missions and capability to be ready to go should there be a requirement.” Our Chief Science Officer Dr Naomi Speers has helped lead ASADA’s COVID-19 response with the safety of athletes and our staff the “priority”, she says. “Obviously there has been significant impact on our field operations and we’re really conscious of ensuring that athletes are kept safe with any testing we do and that our staff are kept safe and we’ve put in place process and procedures that will ensure that,” Dr Speers said. We also answer a question from the public: “Why does ASADA keep samples for 10 years?”

USADA CEO Travis Tygart has dealt with some of the biggest anti-doping cases in history, such as the scandals involving Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones.   Tygart says “nobody ever likes to have to hold a global icon accountable or take away five medals from a Marion Jones”.   “Those are tough moments and you wish those athletes hadn’t made the decision to cheat,” he says.   Despite receiving numerous death threats as a result, Tygart remains committed to clean, fair sport.   “Whether it’s an American or an Australian, if you cheat and break the rules, you should be held accountable and that’s the code that we’ve all agreed to.”   He’s very passionate about keeping the integrity in sport at all times and is not afraid to say what he thinks, always pointing to his “north star” - clean athletes.   Our Medical Officer Larissa Trease also answers a question from the public about the prohibited substance GW1516, why it is banned and the health risked associated; and we detail our suite of online education programs – from Level Two to Clean Sport 101 – that are tailored to all athletes from elite to grassroots. For more: https://elearning.asada.gov.au/  

Swimmer and three-time Olympic gold medallist Petria Thomas has a message for all athletes - “You don’t need to cheat to be good”. Petria joins us on the Podcast this week to discuss the role anti-doping plays to ensure a level playing field and how the process has developed over time. “It [testing] is a part of being an elite athlete,” she says. “It’s not just about enduring the testing, it’s about actually being an advocate for clean sport as well and really pushing the message out that you don’t need to cheat to be good.” She also discusses her role on ASADA’s Athlete Advisory Group and the importance of athletes being able to have a voice in the anti-doping world. “Athletes are the biggest stakeholder in sport. They have the most to lose if sport goes belly up so it’s really important that they have a seat at the table and are heard and their feedback is considered in the way that sport is developed and run into the future.” ASADA’s Senior Education Officer Cheryl Kalthofen answers a question from the public regarding the best way is to educate junior athletes about anti-doping. Complete Clean Sport 101 here: https://elearning.asada.gov.au/

This episode focuses on an anti-doping education collaboration between the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA), the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and Drug Free Sport New Zealand (DFSNZ). USADA’s Elite Education Manager Tammy Hanson says while there are a lot of similarities between the programs, collaborating and sharing resources was “invaluable”. “We’re questioning everything that we do, pushing forward, making changes if they’re for the better and making sure we’re leaning on our resources - to collaborate, not to work in silos, but to share resources…” she says. “It enables the agencies to bounce ideas and discuss the best approaches and messaging for athletes.” ASADA’s A/G Director of Education and Innovation Alexis Cooper says the challenge is capturing the attention of athletes, parents, coaches, and the sporting community through new technologies. “Anti-doping is often not the most exciting thing that athletes want to talk about,” Cooper says. “They would often rather be training so what we do is use new technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality, apps, those sorts of things to try to cut through and engage the audiences and get them interested.” They both agreed that education is about building positive cultures, ensuring athletes understand how choosing to take performance enhancing drugs impacts them, their reputation and their country’s reputation. “We’re not fighting a war on drugs, we are fighting a win-at-all-costs mentality,” Hanson says, “so anything that we can do to help them (athletes) really start thinking about the decisions that they make, that using a dietary supplement is a thought, it’s a decision; trusting a coach when they give you advice, that’s a decision that you’re making; not reporting doping or reporting it, that’s a decision…” ASADA's Assistant Director of Operations also joins this episode providing an answer to the question "Are doping protocols the same everywhere?".

Welcome to Season 2 of On Side. Today’s episode features 2008 and 2012 Paralympic cycling gold medallist Michael Gallagher. Prior to the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, Gallagher tested positive for recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO) at a training camp in Italy. Still under sanction, Gallagher talks about the biggest impact his sanction had on him and what drove him to “cross a dark line”. “It [sanction] is still something I think about regularly,” Gallagher says. “I took a long time to recover from it… [and did] a lot of self-reflecting.” Gallagher is now a member of ASADA’s Athlete Advisory Group (AAG), which comprises a number of current and former athletes, including athletes who have lost medals to drug cheats. “Sports a passionate thing, and people have the right to feel strongly about certain people’s decisions, but I think my story, and people meeting me in person, probably makes doping seem a lot less black and white,” he says. “That you can be a good person, an honest person, but head down the wrong way.” Our athlete services officer Di Tucknott also answers a question about logging your whereabouts, along with our sports operations manager Steve Northey delivering a 'fast fact' about anti-doping tests conducted last financial year.