What did we learn at Clean Sport Connect: Science and Medicine Webinar

UK Anti-Doping’s (UKAD) Clean Sport Connect webinar series took place online from 21 September to 12 October 2022. The new series was created for people working within sport and supporting athletes to learn more about clean sport in bite-size pieces. Key topics included anti-doping education and the testing programme at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, UKAD’s Assurance Framework and The World Anti-Doping Agency’s 2023 Prohibited List.

What we learnt from our final webinar: Science and Medicine

In our final webinar, guest speakers’ Dr Irene Mazzoni WADA Associate Director of the Prohibited List and Ellen Gregson UKAD Science Manager discussed the 2023 Prohibited List. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently released the 2023 List of Prohibited Substances and Methods, which is available to read online. Broken down into several categories, the List identifies which substances and methods are prohibited at all times, in-competition only, and within specific sports.

The Prohibited List is updated annually on 1 January. Each year there is a formal consultation period with WADA’s stakeholders to decide what substances and methods are added to the List. WADA’s List Expert Advisory Group meet on three occasions during the year to prepare the Draft and consider stakeholder feedback. The final List is released each year in October, giving athletes and their support personnel time to make themselves aware of the changes, review any medications they use, and apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption if required before the updated List comes into effect on 1 January.

It’s important that athletes and Athlete Support Personnel check the Prohibited List. UK based athletes can check the anti-doping status of their medication on Global DRO to find out if the medication they have been prescribed or purchased is prohibited in sport.

Tramadol

The second half of the Science and Medicine Webinar discussed the narcotic Tramadol, which will be prohibited in-competition from 1 January 2024.

Dr Lex Mauger of the University of Kent introduced an academic study on the performance enhancing effects of Tramadol, studying how the substance is used to decrease naturally occurring pain that accompanies fatigue in time-trial cycling.

Tramadol presents both long and short-term risks to athletes. It is a narcotic that is addictive, and there are harrowing stories of athletes becoming addicted to tramadol after using the drug for pain management or recovery from injury.

In Dr Lex Mauger’s study results, highly trained cyclists gained an average 1.3% improvement on their time-trial time when using Tramadol, a performance advantage sufficient to change the make-up of the medalling positions in participant cohort for the study. The majority of participants posted better time-trial times in the tramadol condition.

Thank you for joining us

Thank you for joining us at Clean Sport Connect, UKAD’s new webinar series.

Recordings from the Major Games: Clean Sport on Home Soil, and the Science and Medicine Webinar are available to watch back here.

We hope you enjoyed the series and please do share your feedback with UKAD’s Events Team: events@ukad.org.uk.