 Welcome back to the Sportsmax Zone. Well, we conclude our week-long recap of the 51st Carift Games by looking at an area of the sport that is often overlooked. With over 700 of the region's best junior athletes gathering in Grenada for three days of pulsating track and field action. The Caribbean regional anti-doping organization in partnership with World Anti-Doping Agency WADA seized the moment to descend on the spice aisle with the mission of educating athletes about clean sport. Rado's Executive Director Dr. Sasha Sutherland joins us on Zoom to tell us a bit more about this initiative. Welcome to the Sportsmax Zone, Sasha. Hello, Maria. Thank you for having me. Not a problem. So good to have you on. And of course, I'll start by asking you to just give us a bit of recap as to the initiative and what was outlined in Grenada. Yes, so as you introduced the World Anti-Doping Agency, let me preface it by saying we had a ministers of sport meeting in Jamaica at the start of the year and WADA made a pledge, made a commitment to the region that they would invest more. And CARIFTA was the start of an athlete engagement program as part of WADA's commitment to ensuring we do education before testing in our region. So we spent the three days with Olympians Mikael Thomas and Alianne Pompey from Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana respectively. In Grenada, we also had Rafael Rezende from WADA's stakeholder engagement team and Marsha Boyce, all communications manager in Grenada, just doing athlete outreach, values-based education, providing them information on testing and values-based education and making sure they had ethical decision-making in sport. And so we used the WADA quiz, the playthrough quiz. Eight out of ten gets you a hat, you get to meet the Olympians, we're all part of one playthrough team and this was our way of engaging with athletes at a younger age before they got to the elite level. So the idea is that if education is important, we want to make sure the education starts at a younger age and that we're engaging with our junior elite athletes before they enter that international arena and they are aware of their rights and responsibilities as athletes. Rather than doing it in the classroom, it was all about making sure we had a zone that was fun, engaging, we got to engage with some of the metal holders, we had some dignitaries present as well and we even had athletes show their appreciation for having that kind of information shared with them at Carifters. So all in all, a fun weekend for clean sport and a very engaging one with the athletes. Yes, so important because you know many a times when these doping cases come to light, one of the first things those looking on at what's happening say is that the bodies in charge didn't do enough to educate so I feel as if starting at such a young age is so important because if you don't get it then you're going to get another educational course on it and it's going to be drilled into you to the point where that will no longer be an excuse that you didn't know. So for me personally I feel like it's a good start. I'll ask you though what was the response like from the athletes because do you feel based on you know the feedback that you got that they received it in the manner that you would like? You know one of the key things for us especially in the region, we love face to face education, we love engaging with athletes and we're going to do our evaluation and our impact assessment in about a week or so when we sit with one and just kind of debrief on the program. But from face value we always see that athletes receive it well, they pass by the booth and they're kind of like I don't want to be tested but then when you say no no no it's not testing, come it's just you take a test, you can win a hat, they want to win, they want to know and we have a lot of athletes who are saying oh yeah I kind of actually went through this before we have some of this information but I don't understand this and so you get the opportunity to transfer knowledge there. So beyond just telling them you know play through clean sport is great you get the opportunity to engage them on anti-doping rule violations and the fact that testing positive is not the only way that you can be guilty of an anti-doping rule violation, you get to speak to them about supplementation and nutrition you get to tell them about you know if they're in a registered testing pool what the requirements are. So I would say there was a really good response from the athletes, we had many a person go to their camp and come back with their friends and I think that's a good indication that we're transferring knowledge that we're talking about values based education, we're raising awareness but they're also getting the information, the anti-doping educational part of it outside of the classroom in a way that's fun and engaging. So I would say generally the impact was high and we did have a good response both from the athletes and you know athletes of what personnel who rose to the challenge and took the quiz as well and from dignitaries who came to the booth to find out more about what we were doing. Doc can you talk to us quickly about the reach of Rado because is it still headquartered in Barbados? The Rado, okay so the reach, could you talk to us about the reach and how throughout the region it you know it governs and covers the ground that it really wants to? Definitely, so the Caribbean Rado has 18 member countries across the region but we do not limit our engagement to those 18 countries so we work closely with Jacko for example in Jamaica whether it's on testing programs or if there needs to be collaboration on any aspect of doping control outside of testing. At the Minister's Forum in Jamaica in January especially there was Bermuda who are not members of the Rado but we do provide support when when required. So in terms of our reach yes we have 18 member countries who delegate parts of their programs to us whether that is the results management if an athlete is found to be guilty of an anti-doping rule violation or evaluating therapeutic use exemptions for athletes or assisting with their education programs but we go beyond the English-speaking Caribbean. Some of our members are actually the Dutch-speaking Caribbean Aruba Bonne Curacao and we also have partnerships with other countries outside of the Caribbean Rado. We work closely with the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees for example and their membership so we've done training programs for their members as well a lot of whom are not members of the Caribbean Rado. So when you talk about reach why we only have 18 member countries we work very closely with the other countries who may not be members of the Rado and we also work closely with the Pan Rado which is kind of like the Caribbean equivalent in Latin America. Yeah and I gather that there was with regard to the treatment of the engagement that you had at the Carifta Games because you were dealing with with junior athletes. I gather that was there was a subtle treatment of the project and the term doping wasn't used at all and you were emphasizing clean sport because you're dealing with junior athletes so it was a deliberate approach not to use doping or anti-doping which is basically what you do but you weren't presenting it as such to the juniors. Exactly so when you approach a junior athlete and you say doping or anti it's kind of like oh my gosh I don't want to be a part of this but when we change it and we see a clean sport it's all about rewriting the narrative and making it palatable you know so when you tell them about you know what values you have or education as a priority one of our main goals is to ensure that every athlete along that athlete pathway from the playground children in schools all the way up to the elite athlete so going for podium finishes are educated it means that you have to know your public and so a junior athlete is going to respond more to clean sport come win a prize and then you slip in the education while you're talking to them or oh my gosh you just want to go medals so fantastic what was your event you know and Alianne and Miquel did such a fantastic job and Rocky Seacher arm from the Grenada Nado in just making the athletes feel comfortable and talking about their sport and getting to know them and once they were comfortable then we had the opportunity to say you know just remember you need to eat properly be careful what you put into your bodies be careful of supplements and the quiz you know kudos to Wada for having that too because it never gets old we did it at Caribbean the Commonwealth Youth Games sorry in Trinidad and Tobago last year 71 countries across the world descended on Trinidad and the outreach was amazing and athletes at that age it doesn't matter what country they come from the Caribbean Australia you know Canada they all are interested in the information and they all are basically on the same levels but if we re-write the narrative in a Radar's palette of all to them they were just on it everybody wanted a blue hat they were wearing it right after we had one of the teams Guyana do this dance and we use that on social media to say you know what we are doing is not just fun but it gives you information that you could use throughout your athlete life lifespan yeah so important rewriting the narrative as you said I think it's so so important Dr. Sasha we want to thank you so much for stopping by on the Sportsmax zone and we hope to chat again soon as you continue of course educating and ensuring that the initiative is pushed in the right manner thank you thank you for having us no problem of course the doctor Sasha Sutherland there the executive director at Radu taking a quick break we'll be right back