Shkolna to speak on contamination of food in clean sport webinar

International compound archer Mariya Shkolna will reveal her experience of inadvertent doping as part of a series of webinars for archers, archery coaches and management run by the International Testing Agency, which handles World Archery’s clean sport programme.

The one-hour session will take place in the morning (10h00 CET) on 7 March 2023 and be replayed in the afternoon (16h00 CET).

“It’s important to talk about these kinds of cases because they don’t happen often and I believe there’s nobody at fault,” said Shkolna. “What I learnt from my situation can benefit a lot of athletes, helping them never to be in the same trouble or at least have a solution that will not affect their sporting career.”

Shkolna was one of several athletes who were found to have an adverse analytical finding – a banned substance – in a doping test after competing in Guatemala.

Almost all of the cases, including Shkolna’s, were proved to be contaminated meat.

Mariya was not sanctioned – but chose to make her situation public in order to educate other archers.

“The International Testing Agency is there to keep our sport clean. But is every finding doping? Not at all, and these are the cases which, in my opinion, should not be punished but as athletes we need to be ready to react properly in order to ensure a fair and positive outcome,” she explained.

Shkolna will be joined in the archery-specific seminar by World Archery secretary general Tom Dielen, who previously worked for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Archers, coaches and team management can register for the live session, which will be hosted on Zoom, or replay now. Everyone who attends will receive a certificate of participation.