JUST SPORT

The JUST SPORT project targeted 269 fitness trainers and 59 fitness centers. It was implemented in Croatia, Slovenia, Sweden, Portugal, Bulgaria and Italy. The goal of the project was to educate trainers and owners of fitness centres, as well as recreational athletes with special emphasis on young people at the grassroots level about the harm of the uncontrolled consumption of various supplements, preparations and doping substances. According to data of the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA), the doping problem in the recreational environment is growing. Unfortunately, there are only some anti-doping initiatives for the recreational athletes, given that doping in the organizations or public institutions responsible for the health of the nation. For that, there is a whole set of subjective and objective reasons – that is why we have been trying to point out the problem and provide guidance for further activities.With the help of experts from various fields of social sciences such as anti-doping physicians, kinesiologists, sociologists, nutritionists, psychologists and psychiatrists, we have developed training modules in order to educate trainers and owners of fitness centres about the harm of the uncontrolled consumption of various preparations and doping resources. This training module has been developed for the needs of JUST SPORT, but it can also be used to educate other target groups.Modules served as a tool to improve knowledge of target groups and a base for creating the Guidelines for future activities. We trained our teams in charge of the execution of the methodology through workshops organised by each project partner. From the very beginning of the project implementation, all partners tried as much as possible to involve the wider public, government representatives and national anti-doping agencies. The project's success is also reflected by the fact that at the final conference - the first of that kind in Croatia and in this part of Europe - representatives of local and regional authorities, representatives of all relevant ministries and institutes (health and education), national sports institutions such as the Croatian Olympic Committee and the Central State Office for Sport, experts from European Anti-Doping Agencies and the most influential Croatian journalists were there. For the 18 months, we also took care of the visibility and dissemination of presentation materials. We prepared visibility tools such as logo, leaflets, web platform, printed T-shirts, flag banners, certificates of attendance, etc. Through international media campaign and social media, we presented our results as much as possible in the media. Consequently, the interest of the wider public has been attracted. Innovative elements of our project such as a mobile application that mapped "Healthy Fitness"”, crowdsourcing, the network of stakeholders, the transfer of best practices, knowledge and experiences among partners and all other good solutions contributed to a wider reach and impact of the project. Project has contributed for the promotion of healthy sport activity both on EU level and in the six partner countries, involved in project: Croatia – Rijeka Sport’s Association, Slovenia – Slovenian anti-doping organization, Bulgaria – Bulgarian sports development association, Portugal – Municipality of Mirandela, Italy – CESIE and Sweden – SSC- regional sport association.