Canada was the first nation to host an “Integrity in Sport Train the Trainer” workshop as part of a series currently being conducted jointly by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and INTERPOL around the world.

The “Integrity in Sport Train the Trainer” workshop, a tangible result of Olympic Agenda 2020, was held on November 11th in Winnipeg just before the 2015 Petro-Canada Sport Leadership sportif conference. Canada was chosen to host this inaugural workshop because of its structured coach education program and the annual conference provided a forum to train coaches from across the country. “When international agencies turn to us because of our robust coaching education structure, it reflects on the strength of the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP),” according to Lorraine Lafrenière, Chief Executive Officer of the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC).

The manipulation of sport competitions, in particular when linked to betting activities, has become an area of greater concern in recent years. Like doping, such corruption threatens the very integrity of sport. The IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020, the new strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement, reiterates the IOC’s commitment to protect clean athletes and the integrity of sport. A number of measures have thus been initiated and implemented, including robust educational awareness programs to prevent Olympic events from any kind of manipulation. A pragmatic workshop, it focused on enhancing the understanding of competition manipulation, and identifying ways of preventing, investigating, and responding to it.

In Winnipeg, the IOC and INTERPOL presented strategies to combat competition manipulation in Canada and North America. The participants then examined various competition manipulation case studies that showcased the national and international collaboration between sport organizations, law enforcement, and betting regulators and operators. “The workshop delivered some hard-hitting messages around the threat of the manipulation of sport competitions, added Lafrenière. The NCCP partnership will need to investigate how we can collectively mitigate this threat to ethics in sport.”

The role of the coach is incredibly important and the IOC hopes that coaches will inform those who may be approached to manipulate competitions, namely athletes and officials. With over 20 coaches and educators in attendance from the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), national sports organizations (NSOs), the CAC, Sport Canada, and other organizations that deliver coaching education, the objective was to empower these individuals to act as multipliers by providing integrity training to players, referees and other coaches throughout the country.

Michael Chambers, Past President of the Canadian Olympic Committee, said following the workshop: “The cross-section of coaches and Canadian sport representatives who attended the first IOC-INTERPOL ‘Train the Trainer’ workshop left with a substantially broadened knowledge and understanding of competition manipulation, how to recognize it, how to prevent and resist it, and how to deal with it. It is heartening to see that concrete steps are being taken to protect clean athletes, and implement IOC integrity in sport initiatives.”

For more information about INTERPOL’s role in the project, please click here.

For more information about the IOC’s role in the project, please click here.