SINGAPORE: The national anti-doping authority said that the recent drug scandal involving Singapore’s national swimmers is a timely call to better educate athletes. “This incident is quite timely, because there is now a global push on education to the forefront of the anti-doping strategies,” said Dr Patrick Goh, chairman of the National Anti-Doping Advisory Board. “It also showed the need for athletes, even at that level, to be better educated and understand their responsibilities,” added Dr Goh, who is also the chairman of the Southeast Asia Regional Anti-Doping Organisation.Anti-Doping Singapore (ADS) said it will be prioritising education on clean sport and drug awareness, and promoting doping-free behaviour among the local sport fraternity.Athletes and support personnel can expect more frequent and informative education programmes and workshops.This comes after Singapore's national swimmers Joseph Schooling, Amanda Lim and Teong Tzen Wei confessed to consuming recreational controlled drugs overseas last year.The three tested negative for banned substances, and were not sanctioned as the consumption of some recreational controlled drugs outside of competition is currently not prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).The Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) said, however, the swimmers breached several rules in its code of conduct.
They were fined and given warnings as a result.Dr Goh said the incident put a spotlight on several issues.Violating anti-doping regulations is not just about testing positive, but a whole host of other rules that could be broken, including possession, evading or refusing drug tests, and failure to update whereabouts in some cases, he said.“I think a lot of athletes tend to