Tony Oldham and Sian Clancy: Drug-testing school teams is for the benefit of budding professionals

Nick Paterson, the new CEO of Drug Free Sport New Zealand. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

By Tony Oldham and Sian Clancy

The announcement of drug testing in high school rugby union has drawn undue attention to rugby and school sport.

Elsewhere in the world, close to 4 per cent of adolescent sport participants dope. New Zealand's enviable place as one of the highest performing sporting nations in the world is the product of an active sporting and, for the most part, clean culture.

Maintaining this position requires vigilance and the ability to recognise the need for change - issues that are not confined to rugby or schools. Testing has its place, but what's been overlooked in the debate is how to foster "clean" decision-making.

In many sports, the decision to become a committed high-performance athlete now coincides with the teenage years. This period is known to be critical for the development of identity and self-worth.

In the spirit of better people making better players, our future champions need compassionate support that reflects their needs and realities.

Two years ago, Drug Free Sport New Zealand initiated a collaboration with AUT aimed at researching and developing a revised education programme. A major objective of the programme was to understand the challenges facing New Zealand athletes with respect to supplements, doping and personal development.

In the course of the dialogue, several issues were acknowledged: that sport is a business as well as a form of recreation, that Kiwi athletes pursue their careers all over the world and that, for many, the decision to "go pro" has shifted from early adulthood to the teenage years.

The research team is about to begin the largest and most detailed survey into this issue ever conducted in New Zealand. The findings, along with follow up consultation, will form the basis of an education package designed to work within schools and across sport.

The intervention we develop will use the best of New Zealand education and sporting culture in a way that, it is hoped, will keep world-wide sport clean for years to come, which will be possible only with the continued support of athletes, schools, national and regional sport organisations and other stakeholders.

New Zealand athletes will be challenged to make good decisions at different times throughout their careers, and in different situations across the world. It seems obvious then that Kiwi athletes need to equip themselves with expectations of a clean culture, and with the tools to be active agents in that culture from the outset.

The goal is to support our existing clean culture through a modern education-driven model. This meets an obvious duty of care and the need to protect New Zealand sporting culture as a whole - a culture that drives an industry estimated in 2015 to be worth almost $5 billion.

The recent debate surrounding drug testing in high school rugby may have been unfairly narrow, but if it ends in educational discussion of supplementation and doping, it won't have been wasted. We need to address the vacuum in which the problem of doping thrives, by enabling our young athletes to make good decisions.

• Dr Tony Oldham is a senior lecturer in sport coaching at Auckland University of Technology. He has provided sport psychology support to athletes from school to Olympic level.

• Sian Clancy leads Drug Free Sport NZ's education team, and is doing a PhD in sport coaching at AUT.