{"id":398741,"date":"2019-10-19T00:31:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-19T07:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=398741"},"modified":"2019-10-19T00:31:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T07:31:00","slug":"play-the-game-goggles-on-whistleblowers-athlete-power-safety-doping-governance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/play-the-game-goggles-on-whistleblowers-athlete-power-safety-doping-governance\/","title":{"rendered":"Play The Game Goggles On Whistleblowers, Athlete Power, Safety, Doping & Governance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Play The Game Scrutinises Sport<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The 2019 Play the Game Conference<\/strong> was held for the first time outside Europe this year as more than 170 speakers brought their views and expertise on sport and society to the doorstep of the troubled world of Olympic governance in the United States.<\/p>\n

For three and a half days this past week in Colorado Springs Play The Games 11th gathering considered Whistleblowers, Safety, Doping, Governance and Rights<\/strong> under the conference banner “Athlete power on the rise!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Athletes are indeed finding their voices and yet still they continue to participate when that makes them part of the problem not the solution to poor and even dangerous governance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As swimmers from the next four teams – London Roar, LA Current, Team Iron and NY Breakers<\/strong><\/a> – make their debuts in the pioneering global Pro-Team start-up International swimming League in Dallas today, the issues that affect their careers, livelihoods, safety, welfare and well-being are in play in a governance world that has long shut them out of genuine engagement as major stakeholders in world sport.<\/p>\n

Play the Game is an initiative run by the Danish Institute for Sports Studies<\/strong> <\/a>(Idan). It aims to raise ethical standards, promote democracy, transparency and freedom of expression in world sport.<\/p>\n

Here is a digest of the major themes tackled at the 2019 gathering:<\/em><\/p>\n

Whistleblowers<\/h2>\n

\u201cThe fight is not over yet\u201d<\/h3>\n

Whistleblowers Yuliya Stepanova and Vitaly Stepanov<\/strong> exposed the Russian state doping scandal in their work with German TV station ARD’s Sportschau anti-doping investigations<\/strong> team.<\/p>\n

Almost seven years have passed since Stepanova, a former Russian international 800m runner, blew the whistle on a scandal of systematic proportions. The crisis is not over, the fall out will last for years – and the whistleblowers’ lives will never be the same as a consequence of telling a terrible truth at the heart of Olympic sport.<\/p>\n

Yuliya Stepanova has not seen her family since she fled Russia in late 2014 together with her husband Vitaly Stepanov, a former Rusada agent whose testimony also helped raise the red flag on a deception that stretched to the top of the political heap in Russia, helped ARD expose the Russian state doping scandal and sparked the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigation still in play.<\/p>\n

Here are the Stepanovs on what its all meant for them:<\/p>\n