The Finnish Antidoping Agency FINADA and antidoping activities in Finland

History of doping control

Doping control is generally said to have begun in 1928 when the International Amateur Athletic Federation IAAF drew up lists of performance-enhancing prohibited substances. Other international sports federations soon followed. The International Olympic Committee listed prohibited substances for the first time in 1968.

In Finland, antidoping work became more firmly established with the first athletics world championships held in Helsinki in 1983. The United Laboratories Ltd (Yhtyneet Laboratoriot Oy) became the first Finnish laboratory to be accredited by the IOC. Today, it is still the only accredited doping testing laboratory in Finland.

With the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Finland established a national doping committee. Pressure accumulated in the late 1980s to develop its organisation structure. This led to the establishment of a Finnish Antidoping Committee in 1990. The new organisation worked under the Association for Promotion of Sports Medicine and Physiological Testing (LIITE). The same year, Finland signed the Council of Europe Anti-Doping Convention.

Due to the doping scandals in the 2001 World Nordic Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland, a working group was set up. One of its recommendations was to make antidoping work more effective. This led to the decision to establish a new, independent organisation, funded by the Ministry of Education, based on the administrative model of World Anti-Doping Agency WADA. Sports medicine and physiological testing were transferred to The Finnish Society for Research in Sport and Physical Education and the constitutive meeting of the Finnish Antidoping Agency FINADA was held on 8 November 2001.

Organisation

The Finnish Antidoping Agency FINADA was established on 8 November 2001 and entered in the register of associations on 20 November 2001. FINADA assumed responsibility for antidoping work and doping control from the anti-doping committee of LIITE association beginning on 1 January 2002.

FINADA has five members:

• Finnish Sports Federation
• Finnish Olympic Committee
• Finnish Paralympic Committee
• Suomen Urheilulääkäriyhdistys (Finnish association of sports physicians) and
• the Finnish government, represented by the Ministry of Education

The members nominate the association’s Board, with the Ministry of Education nominating three of the six members. In addition, a representative of athletes has the right to attend and speak. This representative is chosen by the Olympic Committee’s athlete committee. The central tasks of the Board include directing the association’s strategic activities and ratifying the antidoping code applied in Finland.

FINADA’s Supervisory Group (three physicians and one lawyer) is the body that decides, based on the anti-doping code, whether an act is an antidoping rule violation.

FINADA’s office has eight employees, in addition to which FINADA employs a part-time medical director. Doping tests throughout Finland (and, if need be, abroad) are carried out by nearly 30 part-time doping testers authorised by FINADA.

The Ministry of Education finances FINADA’s operations. The annual government aid was 1,400,000 € in 2007.

Spheres of activity

FINADA’s central spheres of activity are:

• doping testing
• educational activities, and
• international activities

FINADA’s activities also include coordination of research, communications, medical affairs and legal affairs.