World Anti-Doping Conference Was a Challenge Itself

The name of the conference should tell you plenty: First Permanent World Conference On Anti-Doping In Sport.

Mouthfuls such as that come easily to international bureaucrats. So do lengthy banquets with droning keynote speakers.

Not much else comes easily at such gatherings. International delegates, even at a sports medicine conference, bring along their geopolitical baggage; much time is taken up with finger pointing and flag waving. Addressing the issues is left to small committee groups and desperate late-night caucusing.

So it was at the First Permanent World Conference On Anti-Doping In Sport, which was held last month at the Government Conference Centre. Over four rain-swept days, 85 government officials, physicians and leaders of sport federations from 27 nations met at the foot of Parliament Hill to hash out a draft of a proposed International Anti-Doping Charter, to be presented to the International Olympic Committee for its approval at the Seoul Olympics in September. It was an unprecedented gathering of officials from such conference-shy nations as China, East Germany, the Soviet Union and South Korea.

That a 20-page document was produced--in French and English, as per federal law in officially bilingual Canada--was a tribute to both the diligence of the participants and their perception of the severity of the problem.

Among the barriers:

--Language: It was common for delegates and the media to be seen wandering the halls with earphones dangling from their heads, ready to plug in for simultaneous translation of the speakers and floor discussion. The headphone became the umbilical cord connecting the conference-goers.

--Diplomacy: The Canadian and Soviet governments were engaged in a heated exchange of spy charges during the week of the conference. It was first thought the controversy would prevent the Soviet delegation from attending; it did not.

--Technology: Canada was in the throes of a telephone operators’ strike during the conference. All out-of-town and international calls were difficult to complete. A bright spot: Phone company management personnel were brought in to fill the void. No one could remember more courteous (albeit slow) phone service.

--Priorities: Culture shock was never so great as the night when delegates were frantic to find a place, any place, from which they could watch the Tyson-Spinks fight. A multinational group finally traveled, en masse, to an Ottawa arena to see the event.

--Reality: Despite impressive unity with regard to the issues, the conference was still not free of political overtones. East still did not see eye to eye with West. North was still suspicious of South. And the First World still dominated the Third World.