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Hamish Coffey, who had been serving UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) in the role of director of operations has been confirmed permanently for the role.

Predecessor Pay Mayhill left earlier this year.

Coffey will oversee the development of science and medicine, testing, and intelligence and investigations programs at UKAD.

He has previously worked at UKAD, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and UK Sport for 19 years.

A release posted on the UKAD website reads: Coffey brings a wealth of anti-doping experience to the role having worked at UKAD, WADA and UK Sport for 19 years. Hamish joined UK Sport in 2004 as DCO Administrator and has gone on to hold a number of roles at UKAD and became Deputy Director of Operations (Testing) in 2018 where he was responsible for the strategic oversight of UKAD’s risk-based intelligence-led testing programme covering more than 40 sports.

Coffey is also a WADA Auditor for the WADA Code compliance monitoring program and was previously Chair of the WADA Independent Observer (IO) Team at the 2019 European Games in Minsk. 

UKAD Chief Executive, Jane Rumble, said, “Hamish is a well-respected figure in the anti-doping community and his extensive experience over many years is unrivalled.”

“Hamish is an organisational leader who has been involved in a number of strategic projects to deliver anti-doping programmes across Major Events and international governance. His natural progression to lead UKAD’s Operations Directorate, an integral function of anti-doping to protect clean sport, is very well deserved.” 

Coffey, Director of Operations at UKAD, said, “As a sports fan, I feel passionately that athletes are able to play and win fairly and for this, I’m delighted to have been appointed Director of Operations.”

“I’m privileged to work with such a fantastic team at UKAD who have an unrivalled knowledge of anti-doping and I look forward to working with them to continue our mission to protect sport from doping in the UK.”

Kirsty Cockburn has been appointed to Director of Communications 

Kirsty Cockburn has been appointed as Director of Communications. Cockburn is a strategic communications professional with expertise in the public and third sectors and joins UKAD from the Teenage Cancer Trust where she was Deputy Director of Marketing and Communications. Kirsty has good knowledge of anti-doping in the UK having previously worked for UKAD on a freelance capacity, where she led several of UKAD’s communication initiatives around education at Major Games.