Some people just don’t know when to quit. Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, would be one of them. Pound is well-known for his pitbull tenacity and his penchant for pithy pronouncements, and he is rarely one to disappoint.
So it should come as a surprise to no-one that Pound, who the IOC Ethics commission recently reprimanded for his comments about Lance Armstrong’s alleged use of EPO in the 1999 Tour de France, refuses to back down from those statements. In response to news of the reprimand, Pound told the Associated Press, “Anything I do or say in relation to doping is done in my capacity with WADA. I’m responsible to WADA, not the IOC.” As head of WADA, however, Pound is a member of the IOC and is subject to its rules.
The ruling came after Armstrong filed a complaint with the IOC Ethics panel after Pound’s comments in the wake of allegations published in L’Equipe in August 2005. The L’Equipe story alleged that while LNDD, France’s anti-doping lab, was testing samples from the 1999 Tour, 15 samples were positive for EPO use. Six of those samples were said to belong to Armstrong.
Supposedly, LNDD did the testing as part of its on-going research into anti-doping testing techniques. Only Armstrong was named in the L’Equipe article. The identities of the other riders whose samples were said to be positive have not been released.
Pound, however, is unmoved by the censure. As Reuters reports:
“These are documents. This is an accredited laboratory that found EPO in (Armstrong’s) urine from 1999 and it’s been matched with forms you signed so if the analysis is right and the forms aren’t forgeries you may have something to explain,” said Pound, a Montreal lawyer and Canadian IOC member.
“That’s as far as I’ve gone.
“He (Armstrong) has done nothing about the L’Equipe article and has done nothing except complain about me for some unknown reason. I’ve said those are the facts.
“The UCI knows 15 samples showed EPO and six of them have been linked with (Armstrong), there are another nine that the UCI knows who they are that they aren’t doing anything about.
“We think this is something that ought to be looked at by the UCI.”
Dick Pound certainly hasn’t stopped dogging Lance Armstrong. And his attacks on Armstrong will likely continue as long as he’s in a position to press his case. According to Reuters, Pound also said:
“It’s there for the UCI to deal with. They may conclude it is not sufficient or they might conclude it was eight years ago and we’re not going to do anything about,” he added.
“I don’t know what they are going to do. The UCI has shown no interest in doing anything about it.”
Like many Poundian pontifications, this last statement is not true. In May 2006, Emile Vrijman, the independent investigator hired by the UCI to look into the L’Equipe’s allegations, cleared Armstrong of any wrong-doing related to the 1999 Tour. Vrijman’s report, however, accused anti-doping officials, including Pound, of violating their own rules.
Lance Armstrong told the Associated Press that he appreciated some of Pound’s efforts to clean up sports, but he also felt that the IOC has given Pound a strong message.
“It’s been a long process,” Armstrong told the AP. “Considering the IOC rarely does something like this, it’s a significant gesture and I appreciate it. I hope he learns his lesson.”
I hate to tell you this, Lance, but don’t count on it. As Pound told Reuters, “If Lance thinks this is going to make me go away he is sadly mistaken.”
Floyd Landis and others should take note. Pound latches onto ideas and issues like a pitbull latches onto its victims. And he lets go about as easily. Just because a case may be settled, don’t expect that Dick Pound won’t keep hammering away at it.
“[Lance] keeps alive this whole thing that he should be trying to fade away, that a French accredited laboratory found that he had six positive samples for EPO in 1999,” Pound told the New York Times. “Maybe he thinks if he huffs and he puffs, all of this will go away, but it won’t.”
Perhaps it’s time for Mr. Pound to quit huffing and puffing, instead.
Well it should not suprise us that Pound is ignoring the ethics commision admonition. Pound IS a expert on ethics/integrity according to the national speakers bureau. http://www.nsb.com/speakerbio.asp?i_speakerid=358 Why should he listen to a panel on ethics/integrity when he is a proclaimed expert in the subject?
WHAT A JOKE!!
Atown, Tx
Rant, so we ventured into the same theme park 😉 …. but I don’t agree with the (not ‘your’) assessment that Lance was cleared of any wrong-doing, but rather that LNDD’s departure from using WADA-accepted and validated procedures (and not even the lack of obtaining permissions to test, or violating confidentiality rules) caused the outcome of the investigation. After all, Lance could be guilty, couldn’t he? Assume LNDD had adhered to all rules and standards, and had then confirmed the existence of EPO, then there would certainly have been another outcome of the whole story.
pommi
Pithy? I’d agree if his comments actually had substance. You have to give the guy credit, though. He can throw out word bombs that stick in the media. He’s like a verbal cluster bomb.
Rant:
Armstrong is retired, their will be no more competition and drug tests. The rebukes and Vrajiam report will out weigh what ever comes out of Pound’s mouth.
In other words, let it go Dick. It’s over, he’s retired, move on.
Pommi is sort of correct, and sort of not correct.
LNDD could never have obeyed rules for the tests and produced a case against Armstrong, period. The A’s were cleared and destroyed, and the only allowed use of the B’s was for anonymous research. That the anonymity was compromised was a procedural flaw by three parties pointing fingers at each other saying “not my fault, his fault”, with Mr. Pound still saying Armstrong has “something to answer for”.
I don’t understand what Mr. Pound thinks Armstrong would be answering. There can be no case, and there never could be. If a strong chain-of-custody had been maintained, and we could know for certain that the samples that may have been Armstrong’s were the B’s in question, then we’d have stronger allegations, but still nothing for there to become a case. So, there is legally nothing for Armstrong to answer, period.
If Mr. Pound thinks Armstrong is under some obligation to answer the non-legal charges made by open mouths, such as his own, Armstrong has. He’s denied using the drugs in question, and correctly says he never failed a test. The post-facto B sample experiments were not tests, and never could have been.
TBV
Man, I drop off the grid for a few hours and look at the commentary I’ve stirred up!
A-town: I’m going to check out the link.
Pommi: One thing to note (and this would be a supplement to TBV’s points) is that no less an authority than Dr. Christiane Ayotte (the director of the Canadian anti-doping lab who says that one positive metabolite equals a positive testosterone CIR) spoke out at the time of the L’Equipe reports and cast some doubt on whether or not those samples could be accurately tested at all. Her point was that EPO and/or its metabolites break down in urine, even if it’s been stored carefully, after several weeks. So, whether or not the tests work on fresh samples, she was quite skeptical of whether the test would work on samples that were that old.
Gary: Can I borrow that phrase, verbal clusterbombs? It’s a great way of describing Mr. Pound’s “witicisms.”
ORG: You bet. Let it go, Mr. D.
TBV: Good points, all.
Too bad Mr. Pound wasn’t suspended from his work and unable to earn an income during the period of IOC’s investigation of Mr. Armstrong’s complaint.
I just re-read the Vrijman report. Here is what it says:
1. WADA, LNDD and the French Ministry refused to cooperate with Vrijman.
2. The results were not reliable and were irresponsibly produced.
3. WADA and LNDD slandered Armstrong.
We’ve all heard that old saying, when you look in the dictionary for [fill in the word], you’ll find a picture of [fill in the person]. Seems to me, when you look in the dictionary for psychopath (i.e., A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse), you should find a picture of Dick Pound.
Here are references from the Vrijman report. Don’t they sound eerily like the Landis case?
PARAGRAPH 1.14 “The fact that WADA President Dick Pound and the LNDD’s Professor De Ceaurriz were willing to discuss the research project and its results in great detail with the media, while they at the same time were unwilling to cooperate with a proper investigation by the organization with jurisdiction over this matter, raises substantial questions regarding their reasons for doing so and makes one wonder as to what complete cooperation would disclose).”
PARAGRAPH 1.15 “To suggest in any way that any of the analyses results could properly be associated with a particular rider or riders, is misleading and constitutes at least gross negligence, given the complete absence of an internal or external chain of custody, proper record keeping and security with respect to the urine samples from the 1998 and the 1999 Tours de France that were tested, and the absence of any protection against samples having been spiked with r-EPO or contamination by other samples.”
PARAGRAPH 1.18 “Despite the LNDD’s acknowledgement of its obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the research results and WADA’s representations that it would treat the results as confidential, as soon as the L’Equipe article was published, and perhaps even before the publication, WADA President Dick Pound, and LNDD Director, Prof. De Ceaurriz, communicated openly with the media about the analyses results, while WADA even did so in a manner that appears to have been designed to use the data to discredit Lance Armstrong publicly, and, to a lesser extent, to discredit the UCI and other 1999 Tour de France riders.”
Simply said, Dick is such a wanker (i.e., A taboo term for an unpleasant, self-indulgent, pretentious, or arrogant person).
Thanks for providing the research on that, Steve. Most appreciated.
Nice work Steve. I just skimmed the Vrijman report and was about to summarize paragraph 1.14 which you did so well. The language used in the report was very strong and very direct: For example in 1.14: “Despite the recognition of the proper jurisdiction of the independent investigator by all individuals and organizations that were contacted, the French Ministry, the LNDD and WADA, all refused to provide the investigator with the documents and full cooperation necessary to reach definite conclusions on certain issues that remain unresolved. The refusal by the LNDD, the French Ministry and WADA to provide documents and information that are necessary for the proper conduct of a complete investigation is extremely troubling and is inconsistent with the principles of the Olympic Movement.”
And:
“If the representations in the WADA Code and other rules, regulations and laws about athletes’ rights are to have any credibility and if the WADA Code is meant to be a document that is as enforceable against its signatories as it is against athletes, it is essential that an organization with sufficient authority – whether that is the IOC, CAS, the WADA Foundation Board, the UCI, or a court of law – order the French Ministry, the LNDD, and WADA to produce all documents that relate in any way to this matter, and cooperate fully with the independent investigator in answering all remaining unanswered questions.”
And:
“5.15: Finally there is the conclusion of the investigator that WADA must have been targeting the riders, and in particular Lance Armstrong, as well as the UCI.”
If someone were to design a process to destroy the sport of professional cycling, one could hardly do a better job than WADA has. Why the UCI and the French Ministry would willingly participate in this sham is a mystery to me.