Today Sports Being Played Like War And Wars Are Fought Like Games," Says Sri Sri At Second Anti-doping In Sports Conference, Oslo
Reporter And Author, David Walsh, Who Outed Lance Armstrong And The Systematic Doping Scandal Involving Him, Wins Ethics In Sports Award 2019
Oslo: In the light of the global doping menace that shook the world of sports last year, this year’s annual global Anti-doping In Sports Conference witnessed passionate discussions, analyses and exchange of valuable ideas in the context of how athletes, sports, sponsors and broadcasters can work more closely together to ensure more accountability for clean and ethical sport.
Organized by World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB), Anti-Doping Norway and Fair Sport, the Second Anti-doping In Sports Conference was themed ‘Athletes, Sports, Sponsors, and Broadcasters-A Co-operation For Clean And Ethical Sports’.
Given that international sports is driven and somewhat processed by its spectators, transmitted through broadcasters and media coverage and the same coverage is the basis for sponsors and supporters buying products associated to their ‘heroes’, the conference focused on assessing the current landscape, taking stock of the each stockholder’s perspective on how accountability for ethics can be fixed for trust building and ethics in sports.
With the world hit by one of sporting history’s largest coalesced doping scandals in Russia last year, and a general decline of trust among sporting fans, the time was rife for a brainstorming on ethics and anti-doping among over 250 delegates including heads of national doping agencies and sports federation from 27 countries around the world.
The key speakers included Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, global humanitarian and founder of World Forum For Ethics in Business and the Art of Living;David Walsh,author and award-winning journalist with Sunday Times, who chronicled and reported on Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal;Vibecke Sørensen, first Vice-President of Norwegian Olympic Committee; Linda Hofstad Helleland, Vice-President ofWorld Anti-Doping Agency;Petria ThomasOlympic Swimmer from Australia;and Svein Arne Hansen,President European Athletics.
In his keynote address Gurudev spoke about the importance of having a right mindset for ethics to flourish in sports, rather than imposing rules of ethics on sportsmen, so that they act ethically even when nobody is watching. "Sports is an expression of joy," Gurudev said, "It's not about finding joy when you win, like a lottery. In sports, the joy is in the very process right from the moment you make the first kick. That's the spirit of sports with which it originally began."
Gurudev further explained why unethical practices like match fixing and doping proliferate in sports, "But today, sports are being played like wars and wars are being played as games. This needs to be reversed and it is only possible with ethics in its place. We need to make values a part of the world of sport." He also cautioned about the institutionalizing of doping in some places. “On one hand wecondemn people who engage in unethical behavior. On the other hand there are people encouraging sportsmen to go for it. We have to find out who these people are.For that, everyone has to come in (and do their part).”
In saying so, Gurudev also mentioned that there were players across the world who needed help in wading through this tricky interplay of ethics, fair play and doping. This opinion was echoed byVibecke Sørensen, first Vice President, Norwegian Olympic Committee.
“You can be unethical but still legally right. This mind set became part of sport lives,” Walsh said, “We have to be ever vigilant.”
This multi-stakeholder conference also celebrated role models in the field of ethics and fair play in sports like David Walsh who received WFEB’s Ethics In Sports Award 2019 in the category 'Outstanding Individual’.
’Today we honor a person who has showcased an outstanding commitment to uphold ethics in sports even at the potential cost of his own professional career’, said World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB) Managing Director Christoph Glaser in his citation speech. ‘Our 2019 Ethics in Sports Award winner has gone through a 13-years odyssey to uncover a systematic doping rife within international cycling and especially around Lance Armstrong and the US Postal Service Cycling Team. David Walsh had the conviction, the intuition, that one of the most professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen was taking place – based on corruption, greed, lies.’
Some of the topics that were deliberated upon during the conference included-‘commercial partners role in Athletes Rights and safeguarding the athletes’; ‘the media perspective’(address by David Walsh, Author and award-winning journalist – Sunday Times); ‘Athlete’s Perspective – the role of the athlete, sponsor, broadcaster and sport in clean and ethical sport’ (address by Olympic players- Petria Thomas and Peter Koukal)’; ‘Crisis management; Navigating the dilemma between being a licensee of a sports broadcast and conveying editorial news materiel from the same event’; and ‘Sports federations role in clean and ethical sport.
