June 1, 2020, International Children's Day.
This year, Russian anti-doping agency “RUSADA” provided a special program coincide with the International Children's Day aiming at uniting of the Russian sports child community around clean sport values.
The program was focused on the topic of sports values and learning anti-doping rules through the games. All the activities were presented online supported by presentation of short videos on anti-doping issues and further discussion with young athletes.
The five-hour online marathon supporting “Clean sport” movement was hosted by senior manager of RUSADA educational programs department Evgeny Khristenko. The special guest of the marathon was RUSADA Director GeneralYuri Ganus. RUSADA Deputy Director General, author of “Dream to Win” fairy tale, Margarita Pakhnotskaya also participated in the event. Moreover, the marathon resumed the flash mob (launched few weeks before and attended by children and parents from all over the country) by releasing a movie where the whole country reads the fairy tale promoting the sports values.
The guests of the marathon were young athletes from schools of the Olympic reserve: Sports School of the Olympic Reserve in Yoshkar-Ola (Kuritsyn Georgiy, Rudaleva Maria, Nuykina Daria), Federal State Budgetary Institution of Professional Education "Bryansk State School (College) of the Olympic Reserve" in Bryansk (with Kristina Kapp, basketball, Sabrina Silakova, acrobatics). Commonwealth of youth biathlon, participants of Anna Bogaliy biathlon cups (Diana Portsevskaya, Yaroslav Shulgin, Ksenia Ladygina, Gleb Zenkov, Anastasia Kokhankova, Karim Galeev) also connected to the air.
The broadcast gathered Russian pole vaulter, two-time Olympic champion (2004, 2008), Honored Master of Sports of Russia Elena Isinbaeva; Olympic champion and multiple world champion, representative of the Russian Olympic Committee’s athletes commission Sophia Velikaya; Honored Master of Sports in Athletics (high jump), three-time world champion (2015, 2017, 2019) Maria Lasickene; World champion, the best athlete of the decade in the 110m race Sergey Shubenkov.
The marathon program continued with 3 live round table discussions.
1. "Anti-doping education of young athletes and the role of sports values."
The participants: Deputy Chief of RUSADA educational programs department Valeriya Konova; IOC Diploma Sport Physician, Member of science and medical commision and AIDA sports medicine doctor Irina Zelenkova; DirectorGeneral of Lithuanian anti-doping agency Ruta Buinite; Head of the educational programs department of Belarusian anti-doping agency Anna Esman; representatives of Moldova state program "The phenomenon of doping among young athletes in the bioethical-medical aspect" Artem Zhukov and Victoria Fedoryuk; Head of ITA education department Olga Abasolo; Director General of Azerbaijan Anti-Doping Agency Shafag Gusineli; RUSADA Director General Yuri Ganus.
2. “Role of anti-doping education in preparing professionals in the sports industry”
The participants: psychologist and host of MGIMO university program Elena Kuzina; academic director of MGIMO university MBA program Elena Ponamareva; Chairman of the Sports Law Commission of Russian Lawyers Association Sergey Alekseev; Honored Master of Sports, Olympic champion in canoeing, associate professor of the Department of Sports and Physical Culture at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics Maxim Opalev; RUSADA Director General Yuri Ganus.
3. “Anti-doping support in the regions as part of promoting the principles of clean sport”
The participants: Doctor of Sciences, Head of anti-doping support department of the Russian Paralympic CommitteeGuzel Idrisova; Head of clean sports Sector of the Russian Olympic Committee Maxim Verevkin; Honored Master of Sports in Biathlon, two-time Olympic champion of the Winter Olympic Games Anna Bogaliy; Director of the Center for adaptive sports of the Belgorod region Elena Strizhakova; anti-doping specialist of the Kursk region Mikhail Babichev; RUSADA Director General Yuri Ganus.
The marathon covered 617,326 people with the help of the largest Russian social network Vkontakte through a strategic partnership with RUSADA concluded in 2018. RUSADA sincerely thanks VKontakte for the opportunities offered by thispartnership.
This day is of great importance, since the proper anti-doping education of young athletes is the core part of clean sport.
RUSADA thanks all the participants of the marathon for team work, professionalism and absolute intolerance to doping. RUSADA highly appreciates young athletes since they are the future of sports. One of RUSADA key priorities is to protect the younger generation from doping. Our common goal is to educate athletes and promote Olympic values, such as excellence, friendship and respect to become their lifestyle.