Delivering a presentation on anti-doping at the European Athletics' inaugural Medical Seminar, Finland’s Tiia Kuuranne spoke about the addition of meldonium to WADA’s monitoring programme in 2015. 

The heart-attack drug hit the headlines in March when tennis star Maria Sharapova revealed at a press conference in Los Angeles that she had failed a drugs test at January’s Australian Open.

It was only added to the banned list on January 1, with WADA claiming there was evidence that it was being used for performance enhancing purposes.

Sharapova claims to have been prescribed the substance by her doctor for health issues dating back to 2006, including magnesium deficiency, an irregular heartbeat and a family history of diabetes.

Since her announcement, a spate of meldonium cases have come to light in athletics and other sports, including former European indoor 800 metres champion Nataliya Lupu of Ukraine.

Kuuranne, who took over her new post from Martial Saugy last month, said the main purpose of her presentation here was to give medical doctors "the idea of being the ones who are responsible to communicate with the athletes, to ensure as professional sportspeople they have all the available information".

“The ones who want to do everything according to the rules, should have the updated information, which I think was not really successful with the meldonium case," the former scientific director of the doping control laboratory in Helsinki told insidethegames.

"So I think one message to take home is to be aware of the information that is available and if it’s not something that is delivered to the medical doctors, they should also be aware automatically of [the importance of] seeking the instructions with respect to anti-doping regulations."

Kuuranne’s presentation came on the second and final day of the Medical Seminar, taking place ahead of the 2016 European Athletics Championships which are scheduled to begin here in the Dutch capital on Wednesday (July 6).

Commenting on the advent of the seminar, the Finn said: "It’s interesting for me as I’m not a medical doctor - I come from the laboratory.

"Personally, it was interesting to hear about these things which take place and which are not really visible for the public - the organisation behind the Games and how well the medical doctors advise them [the athletes].

"I like the idea of them having a meeting before the competition to network - it’s an effective way to share information."

The subjects of other presentations included nutritional recovery and European Athletics’ Injury and Illness Prevention Study, made by Portuguese nutritionist Monica Sousa and sports medicine specialist Pascal Edouard of France respectively.

Injury and illness surveillance studies have been conducted during European Athletics Championships since 2010 in a bid to determine the incidence and the characteristics of injury and illness that occur during Athletics Championships.

As part of the efforts to analyse the reliability of the data collection, team physicians and physiotherapists were today asked by Edouard and Pedro Branco - chairman of the European Athletics Medical and Anti-Doping Commission - to fill out a survey.

"The aim now is to go a step further by giving information to medical teams to help them to understand the risks to athletes at the Championships, and to help prevent the risk of injury during the Championships," said Edouard, a researcher at the University of Lyon.