On September 20, Witold Bańka, President of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) visited Fudan during a dialogue themed “Play True, One Team” to share WADA’s stories of safeguarding clean sport.
Yang Yang, vice-president of WADA, Olivier Niggli, director general of WADA, Li Zhiquan, director general of China Anti-Doping Agency, Wu Jingyu, China’s taekwondo Olympic champion, and Wang Yu, China’s high jumper attended the event.
As a former 400m sprinter, Bańka admitted that the rigorous training made him a tenacious person, which played an essential role when he adapted himself to the roles as Poland’s Minister of Sport and Tourism and WADA’s President. Bańka likes it when people describe WADA as “unique”. “We have harmonized the anti-doping rules for more than 190 countries, and have almost 700 code signatories. It seemed impossible because of all the difficulties and obstacles, but we managed to do it,” he spoke with pride.
“We want to be athlete-centered.” Under Bańka’s leadership, since 2021, WADA has carried out reforms to promote athletes’ voices on anti-doping matters, adding two more independent members, one of whom shall be an athlete, to WADA’s Executive Committee, and establishing an independent Ethics Board and a 20-member Athlete Council. “We are very committed to give them floor to listen to the various voices what we can actually improve in the system,” he remarked.
Bańka noted that WADA’s work requires a range of professional skills, including information technology, pharmacology, drug testing, and more. He attributed WADA’s thriving development to good cooperation from all parties. “We are working very closely with many partners and stakeholders such as governments, antidoping experts, athletes, anti-doping practitioners, scientists and lawyers,” he said.
Today, WADA is using digital tools like the Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) to confirm athletes’ whereabouts and conduct testing and developing the dry blood spot (DBS) testing for more stable sample collection, storage and transportation. “We build a biological passport for each athlete and will retest their samples for up to ten years.”
During his speech, Bańka repeatedly spoke of the word “innovation”. “We have to think what we can improve in our work. That's why there is innovation in our science and medicine. Innovation is actually even in WADA’s rules.” Bańka jokingly said that in the past, WADA was perceived as a policeman or prosecutor in the anti-doping world. However, WADA also shoulders the responsibility to educate people. “We want to invest more in education to prevent and to make sure that people, especially young athletes know about the rules.”
In 1999, under the leadership of the International Olympic Committee, WADA was established in Lausanne, Switzerland. Its primary responsibilities include reviewing and adjusting the list of prohibited substances, accrediting drug testing labs, conducting anti-doping research, education and prevention. WADA is committed to leading doping-free sports worldwide and has contributed outstandingly to fostering fair competition environments.
By bringing together experts and well-known athletes from the sports community to explore issues around integrity, ethics, compliance, role models and fair play in anti-doping, this event aimed to spread the ideal of clean sport, enable youth to understand the critical role of anti-doping work in sports, foster their awareness to consciously resist doping, and motivate them to become guardians of fair play.
During the panel discussion, the moderator, Professor Zhang Lifeng from the School of Journalism asked, “Is anti-doping a ‘cat and mouse game’?” Bańka explained that WADA collaborates with scientists to continuously improve the testing system, making it more scientific and rigorous. Many Chinese athletes he met praised their country for building an excellent anti-doping system. In some other countries, however, the quantity and quality of samples need improvement, which is the biggest challenges for WADA, according to Bańka.
In 1991, at age 15, Yang Yang, the Chinese short-track speeding skating veteran, won her first national championship. “After the game, I underwent my first doping test in my life, and I was extremely nervous.” Yang believes all athletes participating in anti-doping are contributors to clean sport. In addition to continuing to strengthen education for athletes, WADA will also invest more in doping testing in the future and introduce regulations and tools to investigate issues such as athletes being forced to use doping substances.
What can we do as students to facilitate anti-doping? Li Zhiquan said, first and foremost, that young people should enjoy sports, and when participating in sports, they need to uphold the ideal of fair play and acknowledge clean sport from the bottom of their heart. On top of that, they should gain better understanding of anti-doping, and get to know the consequences of using performance-enhancing drugs.
“China has created a sports environment of ‘zero tolerance’ for doping,” said Wang Yu. “The mission of the China Anti-Doping Agency is to ensure adolescents do not use doping substances. This requires educating the young athletes, their coaches and parents of the consequences of using performance-enhancing drugs.”
“As athletes, we need to do two very important things. One is to teach ourselves about doping to prevent inadvertent use; two is to report our whereabouts in time and cooperate with testing. Clean sport and fair play require great effort from all athletes.” Wu Jingyu remarked.
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Presented by Fudan University Media Center
Writer: Mao Xiaojun
Editor: Li Yijie, Wang Mengqi
Designer: Ling Yiqi
