Keeping baseball and softball real: WBSC renews ITA partnership
With baseball and softball being featured at the Tokyo 2020 Games for the first time since 2008 – the ITA will ensure a harmonized and intelligence-led anti-doping program for the WBSC throughout the year and all future Summer Olympics.
The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Integrity Unit is pleased to announce the signing of a new contract with the International Testing Agency (ITA), which introduces an increased delegation of the WBSC’s anti-doping program to the ITA.
The ITA and the WBSC have been collaborating since January 2020. After this initial one-year term, the world governing body for baseball and softball has decided to extend its collaboration and build on its confidence in ITA’s expert anti-doping programs.
The renewed contract includes anti-doping activities that the ITA has already previously managed for the WBSC, and introduces a new collaboration for the education of baseball and softball athletes, which will be managed entirely by the ITA to ensure full compliance with the new WADA International Standard for Education which has been enforce since January 2021. The ITA will remain responsible for Out-of-Competition testing, risk assessment, test distribution planning, Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) administration, the management of Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs), results management and whereabouts failures.
“The WBSC is fully committed to safeguarding
baseball and softball’s clean athletes and the integrity of the game,” said
WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari. “The renewed partnership with a world-leading
agency like the ITA reflects this. We have recently created a WBSC Integrity
Unit to improve several areas and we are confident that the collaboration with
ITA will continue to make an important contribution in this critically
important aspect of the sport.”
“We are
very pleased that the WBSC has renewed its partnership with the ITA”, says ITA
Director General Benjamin Cohen. “This is a real sign of confidence in our work
and expertise. I wish to commend the WBSC for embracing the Olympic Movement’s
decision to delegate anti-doping operations to the ITA, and thus ensuring
independence and harmonisation in global anti-doping efforts. We look forward
to protecting all baseball and softball players in the lead up to the Tokyo
Olympics and beyond.”
The education
activities prepared for the WBSC by the ITA will ensure that bat-and-ball
athletes (and especially youth) will continue their clean sport education
despite the current restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With
baseball and softball being featured at the Tokyo 2020 Games for the first time
since 2008 – the ITA will ensure a harmonized and intelligence-led anti-doping
program for the WBSC throughout the year and all future Summer Olympics.