The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) organised a national conference titled “Paving the Path for Clean Sport”. A Dialogue with Stakeholders on the Risk Associated with the Use of Nutritional Supplements” to increase awareness amongst stakeholders in the sports ecosystem on the subject in New Delhi on Thursday.
Anurag Thakur, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, along with Sujata Chaturvedi, Secretary (Sports), Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, G. Kamala Vardhana Rao, CEO, FSSAI, Kazuhiro Hayashi, Director, Asia/Oceania regional office, WADA, Sandip Pradhan, DG, Sports Authority of India and Ritu Sain, DG & CEO, NADA attended the inaugural session. Anurag Thakur, in his keynote address, said, “It is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders to increase awareness about risks associated with use of nutritional supplements. However, ultimately the athlete is responsible for what they consume and will have to face the consequences of any anti-doping rule violation.”
He further added, “The recent MoUs with FSSAI, NIPER Hyderabad and NFSU will build testing capacity of nutritional supplements in the country and promote research and capacity building in the field.”
Anurag Thakur also launched the ‘Know Your Medicine’ web and mobile application during the inaugural session of the conference. The application will enable the sports ecosystem to check if any prohibited substance is present in medicines and make informed choices about use of medicines.
The application is available in Android and mobile app versions in Hindi and English and is equipped with user-friendly features including search by image and text options and search by medicine and ingredient options.
The application has been developed by NADA and with this India has joined a few select nations in the world that provide such a tool to its athletes and sports ecosystem. Sujata Chaturvedi, Secretary (Sports), in her address, said, “One area in sports domain where we need to pay a lot of attention is anti-doping. In recent times, we have made tremendous progress in ensuring that the area of anti-doping becomes as strong as it should be for a country that aspires to be a global leader in sports.”