This week, Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) have partnered with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to host the first workshop of phase 2 in the WADA Intelligence & Investigations Department's Capability and Capacity Building Project - Asia and Oceania region.
The workshop, held on the Gold Coast, has brought together experts across law enforcement, border protection and National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs) to build intelligence and investigations capabilities.
Running over five-days, the workshop delivered a mix of training, discussions and real time operations to representatives from Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, New Zealand, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu - with expert trainers from WADA flying in from Canada, Ireland and Switzerland.
Sport Integrity Australia a/CEO, Dr Sarah Benson said it's an honour to play host to the workshop that aims to improve capacity in the region and establish connections between NADOs and Law Enforcement Agencies to disrupt the supply and trafficking of Performance and Image Enhancing Drugs (PIEDs) and to limit the availability of these products that are dangerous to the health of athletes.
"The workshop gives us a unique opportunity to engage and collaborate with countries and their representatives from the Oceania region to build sports integrity capability together and to foster relationships and networks," Dr Benson said.
"We have all come together with one primary goal - to strengthen relationships and capabilities to ensure better outcomes in the fight against doping.
"The Olympics and Paralympics in 2032 is set to be a Games for the Pacific, and it is important that together as a region we look to build our capacity to protect the integrity of those Games and all our athletes who attend them."
The Oceania phase of the WADA workshop follows the success of the European project delivered in 2024.
WADA I&I Director, Günter Younger, said considering the growing population of athletes in Asia and Oceania, and the increasing influence those parts of the world are having on the global sporting stage, we felt it was the perfect place to expand the project.
"We have already seen great enthusiasm from NADOs and law enforcement agencies to make it work so I am very confident it will be another huge success. With these regional projects, the overall goal is to create a Global Anti-Doping Network of investigators, intelligence analysts and source handlers from law enforcement and NADOs," said Mr Younger.
Australian Border Force (ABF) Inspector Neil Matheson, who is attending the workshop, said the event was timely following the recent testosterone operation led by ABF Investigations in Queensland that saw about $300,000 in cash seized and more than ten kilograms of PIEDs seized by the Queensland Police Service.
"This operation highlighted the importance of building strong, collaborative relationships across law enforcement partners, to ensure those engaging in illegal activity are held accountable," Acting Superintendent Matheson said.
"We must continue to share information, intelligence and best practice, and this workshop allows us to connect and learn from each other."
As part of the workshop project, SIA experts in the intelligence and investigations field joined their Oceania counterparts to explore best practice approaches to intelligence gathering and investigation techniques. The key outcome is to highlight the importance of information sharing across organisations and the benefit of collaborative operations to disrupt the supply of performance enhancing substances across the region.
The remaining project workshops will be carried out across Asia and the Middle East, with a final conference held in India.
View our gallery of images from the event.
