Malawi Olympic Committee fears for doping

Malawi Olympic Committee (Moc) fears lack of anti-doping knowledge in the country could ruin the career of some athletes.

Moc president Oscar Kanjala said there was need to continually educate athletes and associations to avoid throwing the sport into disrepute.

Kanjala noted that some of the athletes might take performance enhancing substances ignorantly.

“Nowadays there are a lot of energy giving drinks and some of these contain banned substances. It is therefore important to sensitise athletes and associations to take drinks after thoroughly reading its contents,” he said.

Kanjala said it was necessary for local officials and athletes to know and understand the procedures used by the world doping authorities to avoid flouting the system or being duped.

The Moc president said they were courting media houses to help them roll out a sensitisation programme.

“On our own we don’t have the capacity to reach out to the nation. We are therefore discussing with some media companies to partner us in this project,” he said.

Kanjala said doping offences were serious as athletes could be banned while nations could also be stopped from hosting major events.

According to Wikipedia the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs in sport is commonly referred to as doping particularly by those organisations that regulate competitions.

“The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical by most international sports organisations and especially the International Olympic Committee.”