Teqball athletes from all five continents attended the International Testing Agency’s (ITA) anti-doping webinar series, which concluded last week. This followed the FITEQ Executive Board’s announcement in May 2021 that all athletes involved in FITEQ competitions are required to participate in anti-doping webinars and educational workshops.

Promoting clean sport is a key objective for FITEQ as teqball continues to grow all around the world. Educating athletes and their entourages on their roles and responsibilities has been a central focus for FITEQ over the past few years, with the expertise of leading organisations such as the ITA playing an important role in this process.

The ITA webinar series, which included simultaneous translation from English to Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish, took place from 26 May - 23 June, with the following areas covered:

• Introduction to anti-doping
• The doping control process
• Medications, supplements, prohibited list and TUEs
• Principles and values of clean sport
• Out-of-competition testing

FITEQ has a long-term partnership with the ITA, which was signed in 2019 and the governing body for teqball was approved as a Signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code in September 2020. FITEQ’s cooperation with WADA, the ITA and GAISF led to FITEQ’s adoption of a new anti-doping framework in 2020. This has been shared widely with all National Federations and clubs, as well as being outlined in a dedicated anti-doping section on FITEQ’s website.

FITEQ will continue to promote anti-doping webinars and educational workshops with the global teqball community.