“BEYOND WHAT I COULD HAVE HOPED FOR”

A nine-month sanction from sport changed marathon runner Cassie Fien’s life. Cassie talks about why she shared her story to help educate other athletes.

As an athlete who received a sanction for an adverse analytical finding as a result of inadvertent supplement use, I am thrilled to see there were ZERO athletes in 2021–22 who suffered the same fate.

When I was invited to become a member of Sport Integrity Australia’s Athlete Advisory Group my sole purpose of agreeing to the opportunity was to help reduce the number of athletes inadvertently testing positive to supplements. When I found out the last financial year saw no athlete testing positive because of supplements it was beyond what I could have hoped for.

I believe Sport Integrity Australia is leading the way globally when it comes to educating athletes about the dangers and how to avoid inadvertent doping. Many countries are looking to Sport Integrity Australia as the numbers show Australia is on the right track with other countries even adopting their initiatives.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever test positive to a prohibited substance. I wasn’t taking anything illegal or injecting anything… right!? The majority of us athletes just want to perform at our optimal, which entails giving ourselves every opportunity to do that safely and within the rules – whether it be taking an iron supplement if deficient, a sports drink to hydrate effectively or purchasing the best equipment available. When I purchased a supplement from a local store in Australia and checked the ingredients using the World Anti-Doping Code Prohibited List and Check Your Substances on Global DRO, I thought I was doing everything right. Maybe it was naivety, but as it turns out I was so wrong – some banned ingredients have various names – I found this out the hard way and paid a huge price.

I was at a point of my athletic career where a lot of the hard work was paying off and I was about to embark on attempting to fulfil childhood dreams of representing my country at the Commonwealth Games and Olympics. Instead, my whole world came crashing down around me to the point I couldn’t see any reason to go on. My sport means more to me than being a hobby, at the time it was my identity. Time has healed the wound this situation created, but I am scarred for life.

Moving forward my hope is that we can make the 2021–22 statistic of ZERO athletes testing positive due to supplements the new normal.

Cassie Fien is a member of Sport Integrity Australia’s Athlete Advisory Group.