'Fully Operational' ITA Presents Logo and Slogan

(ATR) The now operational International Testing Authority will be "keeping sport real" as it unveils a logo and slogan.

The branding was designed by JTA Design, and depicts a diamond and the above mentioned slogan.

ITA Director General Benjamin Cohen told Around the Rings that the logo best "reflects the way the [ITA] works" as it moves into operational mode.

"I like the transparency, the clarity, and the aspect that it shines and it is somehow here to help sports shine and the athletes to shine on the big stage," Cohen said. "We are here to make sure there are no cheaters in sport and that we can keep it real somehow. I think the combination works perfectly and the logo together with the slogan makes for a young and dynamic brand identify."

Cohen began his job as Director General on June 1, and has been tasked with setting up the operations of the fledging ITA. The organization assumed the Doping Free Sports Unit from the Global Association of International Sports Federation, so its anti-doping unit would not start from scratch. The DFSU ran the doping controls at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics.

Now the ITA will go through an organizational reshuffle, so that its anti-doping efforts can begin in earnest. The ITA is already conducting anti-doping tests for federations which signed on as a client, Cohen says, and has plans to expand.

The ITA will be fully in charge of running the anti-doping program for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as well as the pre-Games testing program. Cohen said there are talks with other multi-sport events for the ITA to offer its expertise.

To detractors who believe that the ITA cannot exist as a truly independent agency because it absorbed the DFSU and has sport leaders on its board of directors, Cohen says to give the organization time. The fight against anti-doping has moved beyond catching cheats and is now "legal, scientific, medical and you need very specific expertise for that," Cohen adds.

He believes that the ITA will create a hub of "specific expertise" for anti-doping measures in the greater sport movement. To do that, the ITA leadership must engage different stakeholders throughout sports to best understand the current landscape.

"We are a legally structured organization. Our operations are fully independent, so we are not attached and we don’t have to somehow report to any single organization," Cohen said. "It is important for people to know because sometimes from the outside people ask how independent we are, but being independent doesn’t mean working in a silo without any regard to what is going on around [us] and in that sense we need to work closely with the sports movement."

Written by Aaron Bauer

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