The meeting of the European Anti-Doping Ambassadors (EADA) took place in Heidelberg, Germany from 18th – 21st April 2013. This gathering follows on from the European Anti-Doping Initiative (EADIn), which initially trained over 40 Junior Anti-Doping Ambassadors from across Europe in 2011. Since then these young ambassadors have used a unique peer-to-peer approach to inform and educate hundreds of youngsters across Europe about anti-doping issues.

 

EUSA anti-doping junior ambassadors have been involved in delivering anti-doping interventions at a number of the European Universities Championships in 2011 and at the inaugural edition of the European Universities Games last year in Cordoba. In order to avoid a loss of knowledge and momentum, EADA was formed in January 2012 at the end of the official EADIn project, funded by the European Commission. EADA was subsequently incorporated with the support of ENGSO Youth in June 2012, and the meeting in Heidelberg was organised by prof. dr. Gerhard Treutlein.

 

Representing EUSA, the meeting in Heidelberg was attended by three student representatives – Ms Kaisa Myllyla from Finland, Mr Jan Druzina from Slovenia, Mr Luka Rukavina from Croatia, and were accompanied by Ms Abosede Ajayi, EUSA Medical Commission member.

The meeting in Heidelberg began with an introduction by Mr Jan Holze, Chairman of ENGSO Youth and presentation by Mr Jacob Kornbeck, Policy Officer in the Sports unit of the European Commission. Junior Ambassadors Mr Nils Niels Avanturier and Ms Michele Lux then provided updates on further work undertaken to date. Other discussions and presentations over the weekend included novel approaches to delivery of the interventions (by Mr Manuel Ruep) and developing journalistic skills with the aim of publishing news about the anti-doping work (by Mr Moritz Bellmann).

 

Key note speakers included Mr Patrick Magaloff from the French Olympic Committee whose address was an update on the anti-doping fight at international level including review of most recently identified doping agents and future strategies like genetic profiling to identify doping. A plenary session involved discussion of the effects of the systematic doping programme in the 1960s of the East German athletics programme, chiefly involving women's discuss & shot put athletes. This session was lead by Mrs Brigitte Berendonk, who was a West Germany athlete in this era who has written about what she observed during this period. Alongside her was a women's throwing coach Mr Hans-Jörg Kofink who also shared his insights as to the "impossible" feats achieved by many East German throwers in the 1960s.

 

Cultural and sight-seeing events included walks around Heidelberg along the famous philosopher’s way and to the Heidelberg Castle. 

On the final day, the future of EADA was discussed and proposals on how to maintain the network were shared. The key theme was to prevent the knowledge of the Young Ambassadors dying away as they grow older and enter the world of full time work. One proposal is to organise an annual EADA meeting to sit alongside the annual French anti-doping conference, the next of which will take place in March 2014 in Paris. From the EUSA perspective, a proposal paper will be submitted by the Junior Ambassadors through the student commission to look at realistic, sustainable strategies to incorporate the work of the Junior Anti-doping Ambassadors within existing EUSA programmes.