June 17, 2010 (Ottawa, Ontario) – The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) completed its fiscal year on March 31, closing with strong results toward servicing the Canadian sport community’s goal of a clean and ethical sport system. The year was busy with support for athletes and support teams for major games held in Canada, and closed with an opportunity to contribute to a vision of the future in the 2010 and Beyond report. The CCES completed an organizational redesign to improve our ability to respond to the needs of Canadian stakeholders and to reintegrate staff returning from secondment in Vancouver.

“The CCES was focused on integration this year,” said CCES President and CEO Paul Melia. “It was exciting to work with Canada Games in August, helping them bring True Sport to the forefront of events, and reinforcing our values-based sport message with education and doping control. Then we moved on to the Olympics and Paralympics and heard about how many members of Team Canada count the Canada Games as their first major games experience. It makes us see how the Canadian sport system is meant to be integrated and continuous for the people it really is meant to service: the athletes. We are always working to improve our offerings from playground to podium.”

The CCES offers services to instil a love of good sport at any age or stage. Community animators work in Ontario to bring True Sport to school and community groups. A workshop on asset-based community development was held for sport administrators to help them help themselves. And the CCES team of doping control officers powered VANOC’s anti-doping program – and was commended in the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) independent observers report for its role in a doping-free Games. Mr. Melia commented, “I am extremely proud of our staff and volunteers – their dedication to the ideals of sport made it possible to achieve the cleanest Olympic and Paralympic Games ever.”

The CCES influenced leaders outside of sport as well, including medical and municipal leaders. CCES spokespeople Beckie Scott and Jared Read spoke at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference about the critical role that good sport – “True Sport” – has had in their own lives, and how it can benefit communities and citizens. The CCES partnered with Active Healthy Kids Canada at the Canadian Association of Sport Medicine’s annual conference, working with physicians to identify ways to help get children and youth more active and healthy.

Mr. Melia said, “For the youngest athlete, good sport might be a coach who doesn’t shorten his bench to win. For a developing athlete, it could be a pledge to respect opponents throughout a competition. For the elite athlete, ethical sport has to be a way of life – and it was in evidence in the remarkable lack of doping and unethical behaviour during the Vancouver Games. We provided support for all these achievements in 2009-2010.”

The CCES website (www.cces.ca) went through a redesign over the fiscal year, re-emerging in November as a much more dynamic source of ethical sport information for Canadians. Athletes can access anti-doping information directly at www.cces.ca/athletezone. Several new online tools are planned for the upcoming fiscal year, including a therapeutic use exemption wizard and a CEO blog.

Education provided to Canadian athletes on ethical sport and anti-doping rights and responsibilities went out to over 20,000 athletes during the year. Courses were provided to university and college student-athletes, all members of Football Canada’s junior football program, Canada Games athletes, various national and provincial teams, and the members of Team Canada for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Athlete feedback on this educational tool is consistently positive.

Over the year, the CCES conducted 3,801 doping control tests. Seventy-seven percent or 2,945 tests were conducted under the Canadian Anti-Doping Program (CADP), which is funded by Sport Canada and administered by the CCES on behalf of Canadian athletes. A further 856 tests were conducted for national and international sport organizations on a fee-for-service basis. Highlights in the last quarter include testing for the World Masters Athletics (19 tests) and for the International Olympic Committee (44 tests). A breakdown of testing conducted by sport and by client can be found at www.cces.ca/statistics.

Over the year, 24 anti-doping rule violations were reported, a number not seen since 2004-05’s finding of 25 violations. Seventeen were for the presence of cannabis, and as the CCES had warned, these violations began to attract sanction time and publication of the athlete’s name. The rest of the violations carried the full two-year sanction, and one case of administration saw a coach receive a 12-year period of ineligibility. The Canadian Anti-Doping Sanction Registry lists Canadian athletes who are ineligible to participate in sport. This resource is available as a snapshot of the sanctions in place at the end of each quarter, as well as in a “most current” version which is updated in real-time at www.cces.ca/results.

After redeveloping its blood collection program, the CCES collected 118 blood samples, ramping up the program into full force for the new fiscal year. New rules are currently being drafted to enable the CCES to implement WADA’s biological passport program for October 1, 2010.

A 500-member registered testing pool (RTP) is the main target of CCES testing. Online ADAMS whereabouts submissions are now mandatory for all winter sport athletes, and summer sport athletes will follow starting with the October-December 2010 quarter. Mr. Melia said, “We thank our RTP athletes for their continuous effort to keep their whereabouts information up-to-date. We will continue to work on making it easier for them through system improvements and training.”

The 2010 WADA Prohibited List came into effect on January 1, 2010. The CCES published an advisory note summarizing the major changes to the list. Pseudoephedrine is back on the list, and salbutamol is off.

The CCES thanks Canadian sport medicine physicians for their dedication to implementing these changes into their care practices with athletes.

In support of the domestic program, the CCES processed 672 therapeutic use exemption (TUE) applications. Staff responded to 1,046 substance inquiries through phone and email, and our new Global DRO (www.globaldro.com) handled responses to almost 25,000 online inquiries (since its launch in October).

“We are extremely grateful for the support of the physicians who make up our therapeutic use exemption committee,” said Paul Melia, “as well as of the INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier laboratory in Montreal.”

The CCES is an independent, national, non-profit organization. Our mission, to foster ethical sport for all Canadians, is carried out through research, promotion, education, detection and deterrence, as well as through programs and partnerships with other organizations.