Innovative Perspectives on Anti-doping Procedures in Competitive Sports in Cameroon

Abstract

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) monitors each sport globally to certify that sport practice cleared of drug abuse. The abuse of drugs or application of expert procedures banned by WADA to insincerely and/or unnaturally enhance the efficiency of sports-person is called DOPING. Doping, is thus not a new practice in the sports world and involves the consumption, possession or an attempt to consume substances of abuse in elite sports. The increasing interest of doping in sports is important for all those involved in sports, especially for the evaluation of anti-doping policy measures. Most countries in sub-Saharan Africa like Cameroon need to fill the information gap that addresses doping since the analytical process is still to be understood and implemented in most sports nations despite the importance of doping sports. Due to the increasing reporting of many high-profile doping scandals in competitive sport on the one hand and the continuous search to break records and establish new ones, the global fight for fair and clean sport is now more relevant and important than ever. Not only there is need to restore integrity within sport, it is also necessary to roll back the restoration and the integrity of doping control too. Specific anti-doping bodies first officially emerged in 1961 with the creation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical Commission, believed to have been instigated following the death of Danish cyclist, Knut Jensen, during the 1960 Olympics in Rome, who became the first athlete with a doping related death in Olympic history. The anti-doping fight gained momentum and increased support throughout the 1990s, resulting in the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 1999. However, unfortunately it is still not possible to guarantee the sincerity and reliability of all anti-doping practices. It is therefore imperative to create a platform for interdisciplinary/ transdisciplinary and/ or multidisciplinary collaboration with leading academic and technical institutions and sports bodies to hunt for disruptive findings that challenge scientific boundaries to innovate doping controls and incite intellectual curiosity to be institutionalized. This paper attempts to explore an overview of the process of doping substance analysis to educate the sports community in Cameroon.