The World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) Executive Committee and Foundation Board will meet respectively on Saturday, May 8, and Sunday, May 9, 2010 in Montreal, Canada.
During these meetings, Members representing governments of all regions of the world and the Olympic Movement will discuss anti-doping strategies, including WADA's activities at the recent Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as outcomes of the Agency's annual Anti-Doping Organization Symposium.
The theme of this year's symposium, which gathered more than 240 representatives of International Sports Federations (IFs) and National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs) on April 13-14 in Lausanne, was "Implementing Effective and Efficient Anti-Doping Programs."
The Executive Committee and Foundation Board will examine the ongoing review of the practical implementation of athlete whereabouts requirements by IFs and NADOs.
This review, which WADA has consistently indicated it would conduct after one year of application of the revised International Standard for Testing, is aimed at assessing how World Anti-Doping Code (Code) signatories have enforced whereabouts requirements under the Code and how they have exercised their discretion in the management of registered testing pools.
This will allow WADA to determine whether practical recommendations are needed to help stakeholders collect appropriate whereabouts information supporting effective testing programmes.
The Executive Committee will also consider approving non-WADA accredited laboratories (e.g. forensic laboratories, clinical laboratories) for blood analysis to support the Athlete Biological Passport.
This proposal follows a number of requests from stakeholders to use properly approved, non-WADA accredited facilities to increase the number of laboratories worldwide that have the capacity to analyze blood for the specific purpose of the Programmes.
In addition, the Executive Committee and Foundation Board meetings will be an opportunity for Members to consider recent advances in anti-doping and to be updated on some of the Agency's key activities.
These include doping prevention; athlete education; anti-doping development; science; cooperation with law enforcement and pharmaceutical companies; ratification of the UNESCO International Convention against Doping in Sport by individual governments; and issues related to recent doping cases and investigations.