Protecting travelling team physicians
The requirement for provisional licensing by host countries when physicians travel abroad to take care of their teams is a major issue across sports and all sizes of sports events.
The FIMS Interfederal Commission (IFC) has recently collated information on 24 countries worldwide, which confirmed a wide variety in practice.
Already trying to establish the actual laws/rules in a country can be an arduous task that starts with identifying a body competent and authorised to provide the relevant information.
Team physicians, particularly for smaller events or individual matches, therefore are for the most part not aware of the rules in host countries.
Consequently, they will often not be in compliance when a temporary license is needed.
According to health and sport law experts, this might have considerable legal consequences regardless of an actual incident.
For large events such as World Championships, the requirement to submit certified copies and other documents for temporary licensing months in advance of an event is a considerable hurdle for organisers and visiting teams.
While there are efforts undertaken by organisations such as FIMS to find a solution, we would like to share here a pragmatic approach to this matter that is successfully practised by the World Rowing Association (FISA).
The FISA Sports Medicine Commission developed two-step approach:
1. FISA accredits team physicians that provide services to athletes at their events with a requirement of at least one physician per National Association.
They apply online completing a questionnaire (https://rowingtwo.sportresult.com/Accreditation/Doctor), confirming the details of their qualification and specialization, but also their familiarity with the FISA medical rules, the IOC Medical Code and the World Anti-Doping Code.
After submission and assessment by FISA, the team physicians receive a FISA Team Doctor accreditation. This is a one-off application for the physician.
FISA provides regular education courses to update and expand the team physicians' knowledge on key topics in rowing.
2. Consequently, and based on FISA’s team physician accreditation, it is part of the bidding requirements to host FISA World Championships that the host country waives the need for temporary licensing of medical staff and provides proof thereof by the respective national authority in writing.
This approach appears to offer a very workable solution for larger International Federations while a general solution is sought.
Review of the Tunisian participation in the Paralympic Games Rio 2016
26/09/2016
The Tunisian delegation has just completed tonight, participation in Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, with one last gold medal with the athlete Maroua Brahmi (discus F32 weight), thus achieving a great performance with a good record, up 19 total medals (note: same number of medals at the last participation in London 2012), despite the participation to only one discipline (athletics): 7 gold, 6 silver and 6 bronze medals with 8 world records beaten and Paralympic games.
This performance confirms the high level of our athletes despite the limited means available. Congratulations to the Tunisian Federation of Sports for the Disabled, for the results obtained from these Paralympics, hoping to see other athletes in other disciplines in the upcoming games.
participation of the Tunisian elite to the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games (5-21 August) can be considered a priori as "positive" with three bronze medals, roughly the same results achieved by Tunisia in the four successive Olympics: Atlanta 1996, Athens 2000, Beijing 2008 and London 2012. But when doing an objective analysis on this investment and that we look at the costs of participation on all fronts: financial humans, talent identification, training, administration, programming, management and other ... it is legitimate to ask about the many shortcomings and errors of judgments that have been revealed in these Olympics. Tunisia has participated in the Rio Olympics with a delegation of 60 athletes in 18 sports (16 individual sports and two collective handball and beach volleyball sports) finished in 75th place overall with Egypt on exaequo country. .
Rio 2016 Olympic Games: results from the Tunisian participation
It was exceeded by several other Arab countries and ismaliques like Iran (25th), the Turqie (41), Bahrain (48th), Jordan (54th), Algeria (62nd) and Qatar (69th). Many officials in national sports bodies felt after games to the special envoy of the Tunis Afrique Presse, that there is a great imbalance in geographical map Sports in Tunisia, saying that "the medals Ines Boubakri fencing, Marwa Amri and Osama Oueslati taekwondo is in itself a miracle in a prestigious international competition that the Olympics saw the modest financial means that granted them their federations and the supervisory authority for their Olympic preparation .
Deguiche Kamel, president of the Tunisian Boxing Federation, said for his part that we must not only make a diagnosis but also find ways to correct mistakes. It is not only the modest financial means that handicap individual sports in Tunisia but véritbale a crisis of leadership and management. Sport is sick in Tunisia and the main cause is the leaders who have nothing to do with sport and who invaded this area for purely personal reasons and not for the common good ... Also calculations and mismanagement ... He supported his speech by recalling the mishap Bilel Mhamdi in the second round of the Rio boxing tournament. "It was expected that a doctor had to accompany the national boxing selection in Rio but it was rejected at the last minute to allow other people to join the trip at the expense of the state," he said. And the president of the FT boxing added: When Bilel Mhamdi injured there was no doctor to cure his injury browguard arcade and lost on medical decision. "