Usage of drugs in the sport of weightlifting in Thailand

Running head: Usage Of Drugs In The Sport Of Weightlifting In Thailand
USAGE OF DRUGS IN THE SPORT OF WEIGHTLIFTING IN
THAILAND

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Usage Of Drugs In The Sport Of Weightlifting In Thailand
Executive summary
The sports industry deals with several challenges and continuously tries to eradicate the
challenges so that the sports industry can flourish. Drug abuse is one of the common challenges
found in the sports industry imposed in front of both the sports industry practitioners and the
policy makers. The spotlight issue of this study is the issue of drug abuse in the sport of
weightlifting in Thailand. The background of the issue has been discussed here along with a
discussion of the challenges of doping. Some recommendations have been given that can be
helpful for the stakeholders of sports industry in order to retain the integrity of each and every
sport by reducing the intake of drug among the athletes.

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Usage Of Drugs In The Sport Of Weightlifting In Thailand
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Background......................................................................................................................................4
Justification......................................................................................................................................5
Drugs and sports industry................................................................................................................5
Universal implication.......................................................................................................................6
Challenges........................................................................................................................................6
a. Social challenges......................................................................................................................7
b. Lack of anti doping policies and agencies...............................................................................7
c. Drug testing techniques............................................................................................................7
d. Drug demarcations...................................................................................................................7
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
a. More basic level anti-doping programs....................................................................................8
b. Moral training..........................................................................................................................8
c. Advanced doping test methods................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference list.................................................................................................................................10

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Usage Of Drugs In The Sport Of Weightlifting In Thailand
Introduction
The sports industry deals with several challenges and continuously tries to eradicate the
challenges so that the sports industry can flourish. Drug abuse is one of the common challenges
found in the sports industry imposed in front of both the sports industry practitioners and the
policy makers. So, the spotlight issue of this study is the issue of drug abuse in the sport of
weightlifting in Thailand. For that reason, the background of the issue has been discussed here
along with a discussion of the challenges of drug abuse in the sports industry. Finally, some
recommendations have been suggested that can be helpful for the sports industry stakeholders in
order to solve the issue of doping or drug abuse strategically.
Background
According to some reports, Thailand has been facing a major challenge in their
international weightlifting sports development. The reason behind this is that the international
weightlifters of Thailand have been banned from entering the 2020 Tokyo Games because of
being accused of doping. It has also been reported that two of the accused weightlifters were
Olympic champions of the previous year (Oliver, 2019). According to the sports policy, any
country with candidates with more than three positive doping results is considered as out of the
league. In this case, six Thai weightlifters have been involved in doping (ESPN, 2019).
However, two more candidates have been tested positive recently.
This issue of drug abuse is nothing new in the case of Thailand as similar issue raised in
the year 2011 when some teenage girls had been tested positive (Oliver, 2019). The interesting
part here is that the case of doping would not have been caught if the International Weightlifting
Federation would not have done extra doping tests on them. Over 600 sports persons were
declared negative and thus the issue of illegal drug abuse would not have been proved if the IWF
would not have used the GC-C-IRMS technique to test the athletes again. For that reason,
Thailand has imposed a self ban on the country from participating in the next Olympics Game in
the weightlifting. It has been found out that the drug abuse has involved at least one of the
banned drugs and multiple drug substances for some cases.