NOCZ hosts anti-doping, manipulation of competition workshop

MATHEWS NDANDULA writes @SunZambian THE National Olympic Committee of Zambia (NOCZ) hosted an Anti-Doping/Manipulation of Competition Policy Workshop for affiliate national sports federations and associations. Boxing, through Zambia Boxing Federation general secretary Bright Chomba participated in the workshop stating that is was very important to sensitize all federations. “it was very important and I think the workshop has been delayed it should have come a long time ago to sensitize all the federations, doping is there the problem is that education is not there for the athletes they don’t know realize that what they are doing is wrong or not at times one can take aspirin or something if you look at some of boxers some of them are found in the streets and they smoke marijuana they may not know how it can be detected or affect their performance so it was a good workshop so that is now as officials can talk to our athletes,” said Chomba. “In fact am proposing that such lessons should be adopted in schools to address match fixing. To those who missed this workshop they have missed a lot but we will still talk to them,” he said. And Netball Zambia president Martha Sichone said the workshop broke an ice on what needs to be done to the players come next year. “As Netball Zambia next year whenever we have tournaments we will be inviting officers from anti-doping to be coming for sensitization because I think our players are kicking information on which types of drugs are prohibited, one might be taking Panadol or aspirin not know that it has a component that is not allowed, we have to join in this fight I think we archived the objective of the workshop,” said Ms Sichone. The workshop was facilitated by NOCZ Secretary General Boniface Kambikambi, National Anti-Doping Agency (NADO) Desk Officer/ Acting General Secretary National Sports Council of Zambia (NSCZ), NOCZ Medical Commission Chairperson Dr. Titus Fernando and International Olympic Committee (IOC) Believe in Sport Ambassador Nchimunya Mweetwa. Sessions covered topics such as the UNESCO Convention Against Doping in Sports, Compliance & Consequences, Anti-doping Code, Anti-Doing rules & Education, competition manipulation and Preventing Manipulation of Competitions were covered during the workshop. Representatives from federations/associations present were subjected to the signing of the National Federation Anti-Doping /Manipulation of Competition Policy Commitment Form. Having attended the workshop, federations and associations of the various disciplines had to adopt and agree to implement the Anti-Doping Policy and Manipulation of Competition Policy which comes into effect on 1 January 2021 within our Federation/Association.