SOFTBALL TELLS IOC: ‘A VOTE FOR US IS A VOTE FOR CLEAN SPORT’
Don Porter – “Our record is exemplary at the highest level”
Plant City, Florida (USA); 22nd July 2009: International Softball Federation President Don Porter is urging the International Olympic Committee to back softball’s campaign for Olympic reinstatement in 2016, reiterating the sport’s exemplary anti-doping record at the highest level.
The tremendously successful Olympic softball competition at Fengtai Softball Field in Beijing last summer, which entertained more than 180,000 fans, recorded not a single positive doping test, maintaining softball’s perfect record over all four of the sport’s appearances in the Summer Games.
The ISF also undertakes a wide range of anti-doping initiatives and liaises with the World Anti-Doping Agency to ensure it is at the cutting edge in the fight against drug cheats.
More than 250 tests have been undertaken recently both in and out of competition with updated directives distributed to the ISF’s 127 member national softball federations. In addition, the world governing body continues to maintain a section on its official website (www.internationalsoftball.com) dedicated to anti-doping.
Softball’s clean record has been credited as one of many reasons why softball’s popularity continues to grow with huge increases in the number of young people across the world who are taking up the sport each year.
Mr. Porter said, “Softball leads the way in the fight against doping and exemplifies the Olympic values that sport and the Olympic movement aim to promote. I want to reassure the IOC that we will never be complacent in promoting the importance of clean competition.
“Softball has been an Olympic sport that has no time for cheats and has conducted rigorous doping testing and never experienced a positive test at the Games. We’re proud that our athletes maintain the integrity of sport that we seek to promote at all levels of the game.”
A final decision on which sports will be added to the current roster of 26 at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games will be made at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen in October this year.
Further information is available in the OTHER DOCUMENTS section of www.BackSoftball.com
For more information please contact ISF Director of Communications Bruce Wawrzyniak at brucew@internationalsoftball.com, +1 813 864 0100 or +1 813 453 8762 or David Alexander at David.Alexander@Calacus.com or +44 7802 412424.