Play True Day 2024
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Play True Day.
This year’s theme, One Play True Team, focuses on sports, participants, fans, governing bodies and anti-doping agencies coming together as one team to keep sport fair and clean.
Staff from Sport Integrity Australia gathered for a special morning tea to celebrate and hear from our own Olympic and Paralympic athletes on why this initiative remains such an important topic.
The panel was made up of Paralympic silver medallist Richard Nicholson (power lifting and athletics), Sport Australia Hall of Famer Petria Thomas (swimming), former Australian captain Ben Hardy (volleyball) and Olympic rower and Paralympic cycling guide Kerry Knowler.
They discussed everything from prohibited methods of recovery, the impact of competing against doped athletes on their own sporting career to the mental pressures of competing in unclean sports.
Olympic rower Kerry Knowler spoke about the “life or death” mentality of modern-day sport, while Olympic swimmer Petria Thomas talked about the associated pressures that can negatively influence athletes.
“At the top level it (sport) becomes your job,” Petria said. “You can imagine coming to work and having a task to perform, knowing that your job was on the line that day. But that's what sport is basically, at that top level.
“So, you can understand when people get caught up and it becomes hard to maintain balance in your life. One of the things I always felt was very important was that there should be some level of enjoyment in it.”
WADA President Witold Banka encourages the continued collaboration across sport to protect our favourite pastime now and into the future.
“Development of the global anti-doping system has been and will always be a true team effort,” Mr Banka said.
“We have come a long way together and we must go further in raising the game for athletes worldwide, so please join us this Play True Day in celebrating ‘25 years as One Play True Team’!”
The panel discussion will be available on Sport Integrity Australia’s official podcast On Side.
Want to get involved?
WADA has provided a toolkit of resources for everyone involved in sport to join their campaign by using the hashtag #OnePlayTrueTeam.
Sports enthusiasts and participants can also test their anti-doping knowledge by competing in the Play True Day Quiz.
Want to learn more?
You can head to the Sport Integrity Australia eLearning platform to learn more about what you can do to keep sport fair and clean.
