Is There Already Any Athlete Imposed to the Doping Sanction During PON in Aceh and Northern Sumatra?

Jakarta, 23 September 2024

On September 20^th,  2024, PON (National Sports Games) XXI 2024 which was held in Aceh Province and Northern Sumatra Province was completed. The PON was officially opened by President Mr. Joko Widodo on September 9^th  2024 at the Harapan Bangsa Stadium, Banda Aceh (Aceh), and then it was officially closed by the Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Mr. Muhadjir Effendy on September 20^th,  2024 at the Stadium Utama, Deli Serdang (Northern Sumatra). The entire series of competition have been completed and most of the athletes and their officials have returned to their respective regions throughout Indonesia.

IADO, as one of the supporting elements for the successful and smooth implementation of the 2024 PON in the field of the doping control, has of course fully demonstrated its commitment to doping control, whose goal was to ensure that the doping control process during the event remains in accordance with the regulatory corridors set out in the World Anti -Doping Code and the International Standard for Testing and Investigation and also the International Standard for Education. Accordingly, after the end of the PON, IADO is obliged to submit a report on doping control activities during the event to WADA, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, KONI (National Sports Committee of Indonesia) and the Aceh Regional Government and Northern Sumatra Regional Government.

Even though the opening of PON was held on September 9^th, 2024, IADO’s duties through its DCOs (Doping Control Officers) and Chaperones had begun to be carried out on August 28^th, 2024 based that on that date an artistic gymnastics competition took place at the Disporasu Multipurpose Building, Deli Serdang (Northern Sumatra) where the IADO DCO had collected urine samples from certain athletes who have been declared as the champions. Without having to wait for the next competitions of   other sports, the samples were immediately sent to the anti-doping laboratory in Bangkok on September 2^nd, 2024. Urine samples from certain athletes continued until September 19^th, 2024 (for North Sumatra where the last ones were collected from the volleyball match at the GOR Bola Volley Indoor Sport Center venue, Deli Serdang). Meanwhile, the last urine samples collected in Aceh were on September 20^th, 2024 from Weight Lifting and Kempo competitions in Banda Aceh.

Overall, IADO has deployed most of the IADO’s personnel and 31 DCOs, in which some of them worked in Aceh and others were in Northern Sumatra. In addition, there were 15 DCOs on duties in Aceh and 16 DCOs on duties in Northern Sumatra.  The presence of IADO and the DCOs was supported by 39 local DCOs and 62 Chaperones who worked in Aceh. Meanwhile, those serving in Northern Sumatra involved 38 local DCOs and 92 Chaperones. The overall local DCOs and Chaperones had been educated by IADO on August 11^th to 15^th, 2024 in Medan, and on August 18^th to 22^nd, 2024 for those in Banda Aceh. During the orientation and education period for local DCOs and Chaperones, education was also carried out in parallel at the same time for educational staffs and investigation staffs in the two cities, where education in the implementation of the anti-doping campaign (outreach) in Aceh was led by 3 personnel from IADO and assisted by 5 personnel from Aceh. Meanwhile, in Northern Sumatra, it was carried out by 1 IADO personnel and 4 personnel from Northern Sumatra. Then, 1 IADO personnel and 4 personnel from Aceh participated in the investigation, while 4 personnel were from Northern Sumatra.

In accordance with the planned target, in the end IADO sent 784 urine samples consisting of 377 urine samples from Aceh and 407 urine samples from North Sumatra as of September 20^th, 2024. All of these were sent in stages / per package / batch where in one batch of shipment included an average of 80 samples, which were sent directly to the anti-doping laboratory in Bangkok via Soekarno Hatta Airport. All samples were collected from a number of athletes who were champions, record breakers and / or targets from 21 sports in Aceh and from 25 sports in Northern Sumatra, with the following details:

For Aceh

1. Aero sport – Sky diving;
2. Archery;
3. Baseball;
4. Basketball 5×5
5. Canoe;
6. Dragon Boat;
7. Fencing;
8. Foot Ball (Male)
9. Heavy Lifting;
10. Judo;
11. Muay Thai;
12. Rowing;
13. Rugby;
14. Roller Skating;
15. Shooting;
16. Shorinji Kempo;
17. Soft Tennis;
18. Sport Climbing;
19. Tarung Drajat.
20. Tennis;
21. Weight Lifting;

For Northen Sumatera:

1. Aquatic;
2. Athletics;
3. Bicycle Racing;
4. Bodybuilding;
5. Bowling;
6. Badminton;
7. Beach Volleyball;
8. Boxing;
9. Chess;
10. E-Sports;
11. Futsal;
12. Gymnastics;
13. Golf;
14. Indoor Hockey;
15. Jujitsu;
16. Karate;
17. Kick Boxing;
18. Pencak Silat;
19. Sambo;
20. Table Tennis;
21. Taekwondo;
22. Volley Ball;
23. Women’s Football;
24. Wrestling;
25. Wushu.

Ideally, all sport programs competed on the PON are tested. However, due to limited budget  for the doping monitoring from the Organizing Committee of  PON in Aceh – Northern Sumatra, and consequently the sample collections at the PON did not reach 10% of the total number of athletes or it did not reach the minimum sample as regulated in Article 49 of paragraph (3) of the Decree of the Chairman of KONI of No. 74 of 2022 concerning the Third Amendment Completion of  the Decision of the Chairman of the KONI  of No. 28 of 2017 concerning the Regulation of the National Sports Games. IADO then carried out a number of exercises, whose purposes were  to map and identify a number of sports from which samples should be collected, namely those were from at least Olympic-based, DBON (National Sports Grand Design) and also those that were at risk of possible use of prohibited substances even though they were not Olympic-based sports. In the end, IADO implemented a priority scale while not reducing the quality and standards of doping control. Therefore, IADO would like to highly appreciate  the Aceh Health Service and also the Northern Sumatra Health Service which have provided everything based on their maximal capacities  to facilitate all of IADO’s needs in doping control. These good synergy allowed IADO to carry out its performance optimally even though initially it required extra effort to ensure each other’s limitations.

Compared to the previous PON events, the PON in Aceh and Northern Sumatra also invited  the Directorate of Education and the Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation of IADO, in order to comply with WADA standards. Therefore, during the PON, personnel from the Education Directorate carried out outreaches at several competition venues both in Aceh and Northern Sumatra. Meanwhile, the Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation, assisted by local personnel who have been trained, also worked confidentially  at a number of venues.

Taken into account that WADA also provides opportunities for athletes to exercise their rights through the TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemptions) application, whose aim was that the TUE application could  be better understood by the medical teams and officials of each contingent, IADO through the TUE Committee  held TUE socialization on August 1^st,  2024, as a continuation of TUE socialization in November 2023. Specifically for the 2024 PON event, the number of applications received were 40 applications, whose detailed is as foolows: 1  from KONI of Aceh, 1 from KONI of Central Java, 4 from KONI of Western Java, 5 from KONI of DIY, and 29  from KONI of Eastern Java.  After being studied by the TUE Committee (which consists of sports medicine specialist doctor, internal medicine specialist, lung specialist and heart specialist), the results consisted of 2 TUE applications approved, 5  TUE applications did not require TUE, and 1 application which did have  not yet  TUE  (retroactive TUE). There were 32 TUE application status letters which were incomplete and did not resubmit it after being given a reply letter, namely: 1  from KONI of Central Java, 1 from KONI of DIY, 1  from KONI of Western Java and 29 from KONI Eastern Java. In addition, there were 2  retroactive TUE applications showing that 1  was  complete and another one was incomplete.

In this press release, IADO also intends to straighten out a number of reports, because there was news which stated that all urine samples have been declared negative. What IADO has stated was that the first batch of samples sent to Bangkok at the end of August 2024, and the results were known two weeks later, where the results of the first batch were negative. Meanwhile, all subsequent packages / groups (most of them) would not be announced by IADO until the end of the trial process carried out by the IADO RM (Result Management) Committee after the athletes concerned and IADO have obtained positive results from Bangkok. Meanwhile, athlete samples that are negative will never be processed further.

Furthermore, it is also important to convey in this press release is related to the proportional issue of balancing performance between IADO’s duties with all its DCO and Chaperone devices compared to the rewards obtained. Every day, they used to work  sometimes starting from the  early in the morning before dawn to go to a venue location far outside the city of Medan or Banda Aceh, bringing a number of equipment and complete documents, and returning to the secretariat / office of doping control center on average around early the next morning, where the following days they  had to leave again in the morning and so on for the same venue and might be at  different venues. For the  information, the DCOs from Jakarta and other regions generally have own permanent jobs in various agencies and had to leave the office for more than 2 weeks, so not all DCOs were willing to be assigned to this PON (the reason could be understood by IADO) and in the end there were 31 DCOs only  willing to be assigned. The main point is that for the next PON there should be good coordination between the Doping Sub-Sector at the NTB Health Service and also the NTT Health Service, in order that the rewards which could be obtained by IADO and DCO should be based on SBML (Other Input Cost Standards). The Aceh Provincial Health Service even made suggestions directly to IADO during an audience in the midst of busy PON activities, mentioning that in the future the regional government would be contacted about doping control in advance. IADO appreciates the proposal from Aceh, although IADO also explained that IADO’s doping control activities had been conveyed through the  KONI during the signing of the MoU on July 5^th,  2022 and at PON Papua the information had been conveyed two years earlier, so the reward for DCO was very proportional.

Moreover, for the next PON, IADO should be involved in the field of eligibility for athletes who would compete in the next PON. Based on the  the case of a bodybuilding athlete, who actually had to undergo a period of sanctions due to doping, it turned out that he was still able to compete and even won a gold medal. If the doping-free requirement had been established when the legality field met involving the IADO, then incidents such as in the sport of bodybuilding would not have happened again. 

Based on experience at previous PONs in West Java (2016) and also in Papua (2021), the series of processes at that time were as follows. In December 2016 and also December 2021, overall positive results were obtained from laboratories in Qatar (for the West Java PON) and also in Qatar (for the Papua PON). After the hearing process and those who appealed at that time during the trial, the results were finally known in the following six months, except for one case of a bodybuilding athlete who always did not use his right to a hearing, so his status was only decided in January 2024. Therefore, the completion  (if there is any positive) is estimated that it will only be known in March or April 2025.

Jakarta, 23 September 2024.

Chairman of IADO,
Gatot S. Dewa Broto