HIBAPRESS-RABAT-BO
Great satisfaction to the Moroccan Anti-Doping Agency (AMAD) after the closing of the operation to support athletes qualified or in the running for participation in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. And for good reason, all the indicators are green:
A convincing assessment
The results of the support program for potentially qualifying or qualified athletes, which lasted 6 months, were revealed by the President of the Agency, Dr Fatima Abouali, during a press conference held at the end of the week at its headquarters in Rabat.
The operation began on January 14, 2024 and ended on July 17, and ultimately affected 1,069 athletes. It had to be done given the constraints related to the deadlines.
AMAD having respected the requirements of the organizers of the Olympic Games for whom performance alone cannot guarantee participation in the competition in the absence of an anti-doping control certificate.
More than 80% of the personnel tested come from 18 national federations, the rest are high-level athletes monitored on behalf of 6 international federations.
Proof by statistics
The statistics speak for themselves: no fewer than 136 athletes have been subject to the monitoring programme since the publication of the requirements, in addition to 10 on behalf of international federations.
Ultimately, 60 athletes stamped their ticket to Paris, or 37% of the number of participants, which demonstrates the quality of the work carried out.
It was not easy, indicated Dr. Fatima Abouali, because the management of this operation is very cumbersome concerning certain sports disciplines. The example is that of athletics which qualified 13 elements out of a workforce of 54, 9 of which were accompanied by AMAD. To do this, it was necessary to constantly travel to the homes of athletes who were decimated territorially in Morocco and abroad, and to respect the number of controls per discipline which varies between 1 and 3.
The aim of AMAD was to cast a wide net and ensure total coverage of the athletes racing for Paris.
In figures, the Agency carried out 128 control operations which resulted in 390 samples being taken (compared to 176 for the Tokyo Olympics), i.e. an average of 2.8 controls per athlete monitored and 7.8 per qualified athlete.
Athletics took the lion’s share with 61.5% of the control program. This is explained by the fact that this discipline requires rigorous control due to its presence on the gray list of the international body since the doping scandals of certain Moroccan athletes. Also, AMAD must not miss any athletics event organized on the national territory. In addition to urine controls, athletes must have a biological passport for blood analysis.
President Dr. Fatima Abouali makes a scoop on this subject, confident that promises have been made for Moroccan athletics to be excluded from the gray list next year. This will be very beneficial for AMAD, she rejoices, since such a lifting of sanctions will result in significant savings in terms of control and therefore budget.
Judge for yourself, the jackpot allocated to the control of a single athlete is on average 30 thousand dirhams! We can imagine the overall envelope if we know that athletics required 240 controls and 128 trips just for the first 6 months of the current year. This is to say the inherent sacrifices in terms of human and material logistics provided by the Agency. Compliance with the rules of international bodies
AMAD’s constant concern is to ensure compliance with the requirements of international bodies. This will allow it to gain more credibility for its activities of monitoring and controlling athletes.
Dr Fatima Abouali indicated that the Agency has succeeded in this chapter and that we can understand through the average satisfaction of the requirements in relation to the recommendations of the international body.
The control percentage of all sports disciplines reached 100%, except for swimming (66%) due to the fact that the two swimmers only obtained their qualification at the last moments.
A side activity
Dr. Fatima Abouali confides that AMAD does not only do monitoring, but also provides a face-to-face or distance learning program, divided into 7 sessions and dedicated to around ten disciplines represented by 74 beneficiaries. The program is recognized by an Adel certificate that was awarded this year to 36 participants.
In short, this is the laborious and costly work required by the anti-doping control operation, a convoluted operation which the Agency has managed to transcend thanks to its self-denial.
This public service body constitutes the keystone for national sport and for society as a whole, insofar as it stands as a valuable tool for combating depravity within the large family of sportsmen and women and among a section of young people often left to their own devices, without any supervision.
