Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) Chair Debby Brown-Salmon says the body continues to set a high standard internationally and is constantly learning and improving from mistakes of the past.

She said central to that improvement is building anti-doping awareness among stakeholders, including athletes, coaches and administrators, and added that the educational exercises are especially important given Jamaica’s worldwide appeal in various sports.

“Our mandate is to keep the organisation at such a level that anyone who looks at us will see superiority. Jamaica is number one in testing athletes. We have the highest number of athletes that are being tested,” Brown-Salmon told the Jamaica Observer during a break in the annual JADCO Symposium on Wednesday.

The 2025 symposium, which was held at Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel, was themed ‘Clean Sport: Shaping Jamaica’s Global Reputation’. Organisers said five countries, including Trinidad and Tobago and Cayman Islands, joined the symposium virtually.

“We’re not just focused on athletes, we are focused on the wider sporting body, the authorities, the federations, the different agencies in the Jamaica. JADCO is responsible for educating and continuing the education process,” Brown-Salmon said.

“JADCO is always educating and it’s something that we prioritise because if the athletes don’t know, who is to be blamed?”

The local anti-doping commission was heavily criticised when the Jamaica women’s quartet of Serena Cole, Tina Clayton, Brianna Lyston and Tia Clayton cracked the World Under-20 4x100m record at the Carifta Games, only for the effort not to be ratified by World Athletics because all four members were not drug-tested after the race.

The local anti-doping board chair accepted that that let-down was a teaching moment.

“We take our licks and we learn from our mistakes. No one is perfect and we know next time what not to do,” Brown-Salmon.

Denise West, JADCO board member, insisted that the commission’s staff members have at the centre of the education campaigns.

“It’s not just to educate the [athletes], but also the staff at JADCO. We make sure that they too are educated, so they know what the mandate is and they know how to carry it out and bring it across to others,” said West.

“We want to help persons to learn, to apply what they have learnt and to comply because JADCO is about compliance… to ensure that we keep the standard that the [World Anti-Doping Agency] expects from us. We want to ensure that all stakeholders are getting a piece of the pie in terms of learning, and knowing exactly what to do, what to stay away from and to know that you don’t need dope to cope.”

Both Brown-Salmon and West insisted that educational exercises have “significantly” contributed to fewer adverse analytical findings even while the local anti-doping commission has carried out “more testing”.

Jamaica’s Minister of Sport Olivia Grange, who made a presentation during the symposium, told the Observer that JADCO is the “leading national anti-doping organisation” in the region.

She added: “Our Caribbean colleagues have come on-board through our initiatives and [through us] reaching out to them. They are now fully on-board and we have offered to them our expertise. We are proud that we have led the way in the region and we have brought the Caribbean brothers and sisters on-board and that we’re in a position to provide technical assistance, advice and guidance.”

Grange boasted that Jamaica is “one of two countries in the world with a mobile testing unit” — the other is Japan.

Sport Development Foundation General Manager Alan Beckford, another of the presenters during the event, said shrewd financial management, compliance with statutory regulations, and ensuring proper policies to promote anti-doping contribute to effective governance.

“JADCO is doing a wonderful job but it’s for [sporting bodies] to understand that [they] need to engage them and we need to ensure that these different organisations are your best friends and that they are always educating their athletes,” Beckford told the Observer.

— Sanjay Myers