Guests: Dr Sian Clancy, Alexis Cooper, Kelsa Ferguson, Cassie Fien and Nick Paterson

In this episode of On Side we discuss the dangers of supplements and the importance of education in anti-doping to prevent inadvertent doping due to supplements.

This podcast discussion features:

• Dr Sian Clancy, Drug Free Sport New Zealand’s (DFSNZ) General Manager Athlete Services,
• Alexis Cooper, Sport Integrity Australia’s Director of Education and Innovation,
• Kelsa Ferguson, US Anti-Doping Agency’s Health Professional Educator Specialist, and
• Cassie Fien, Sport Integrity Australia’s Athlete Advisory Group member who was sanctioned for inadvertent supplement use.

For the first time in over a decade in Australia, not a single athlete tested positive to a doping test due to a supplement.

“We [Sport Integrity Australia] realised that we really had to change what we did and what we said,” Cooper said. “So the first thing that we did really was change our messaging.

“Athletes we know are exposed to supplements. We know that some dietitians and nutritionists are telling them to take supplements and some of them are just doing it of their own accord, so we changed it to we recommend Food First. But if you have to take a supplement then you should be using a batch-tested one. That's really the only option as an athlete. And then we took the next step of creating the Sport Integrity app, which included a list of batch-tested supplements sold in Australia to make it easy for athletes to actually do that.”

Inadvertent supplement positives is not an isolated problem, Ferguson said, the problem is global and wider than simply athletes.

“We have cases every year that they're related to supplement use and contamination so supplement risk or a huge part of our athlete education,” she said. “There are many of health professionals out there and doctors that also aren't aware of the risks and they're recommending supplement use to athletes. And it's important for us to educate them the same way that we educate athletes on here, or the risk here where you can go and check.”

Dr Clancy said DFSNZ is focusing on “understanding, I guess, the normalisation of this and the prevalence of supplement use in trying as best we can to provide those tools to athletes so that they can navigate what is a really complex environment”.

Australian marathon runner Cassie Fien found out about the danger of supplements the hard way – and was sanctioned for nine months. She “still suffers from mental health issues” as a result.

“I did have a choice to just go and hideaway and never go back to my sport,” she said. “But that wasn't an option for me in the sense of it's a part of my identity. It's my purpose in life and it's what brings me so much joy. Also I knew that I didn't have anything to be ashamed of… I still take responsibility for it in the sense of my maybe naivety for being not as educated as I need it to be.”

Later in the program, we also talk to the Drug Free Sport New Zealand CEO Nick Paterson about his views on education, anti-doping globally and the recent announcement that New Zealand will be combining all of its sport integrity jurisdictions to be under one roof.