According to an article in today’s Guardian via TBV, Dick Pound will soon be out of a job. Soon being about a year from now. This is welcome news, indeed. Too bad it couldn’t be sooner.
One of the biggest problems with the anti-doping system today is a lack of respect for the athlete’s rights under the rules. And no one does a better job at demonstrating that lack of respect than one Mr. Pound, himself.
While the head of WADA needs to be a tough enforcer of the rules, this person also needs to be fair, and this person must ensure that the system works — not just to “catch” and “punish” cheaters, but also to strive to ensure that those who are accused but ultimately not found to be guilty are not harmed by the process.
Dick Pound has only one of these qualities. Whatever you think of him as a person (and for me, the answer is: not much), he is certainly a tough enforcer of the rules. Too tough, because he loses sight of his other main responsibility, which is to ensure the fairness of the system and to maintain WADA’s credibility. And he makes no pretense of following any process or procedure to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of the proceedings until the final judgement is made. Once an athlete’s options have run out, and the CAS brands him or her guilty or innocent, only then is it appropriate for the head of WADA to discuss the athlete’s case in public.
Over time, it will be interesting to see what candidates emerge to replace Mr. Pound. The Guardian article mentions two: Jean-Francois Lamour of France and Viacheslav Fetisov of Russia. The article also suggests that another leading candidate will emerge from the US, but doesn’t mention any names.
Lamour, France’s sports minister is said to be favored by the EU countries. One of Lamour’s qualifications mentioned in the article is diplomatic experience. From my perspective, a director of WADA who has diplomatic experience would be much better at meeting the conflicting demands of the press for information versus the right to confidentiality and privacy that the athletes deserve. Certainly someone with good diplomatic skills would be able to steer clear of the explosive statements that Pound is known for.
Lamour has the backing of Jacques Rogge, current president of the IOC, which may be a factor in whether he becomes the next head of WADA. Fetisov is the current Russian sports minister and a former capitan of the Soviet Union’s ice hockey team. Fetisov will be a tough candidate, too. I’m certain that the other candidates for the job who emerge over time will have qualifications worth considering, too.
Whoever replaces Dick Pound, if he or she is tough but fair, and if he or she can enforce the rules while maintaining a process that ensures that athlete’s rights are respected, then that person will have my support. It would be a welcome change from the leadership (or lack thereof) displayed by the current head of WADA.
I welcome the change, too. But, I though Dick Pound was in, until he dropped dead. TBV brings up the point that there is no where that states there is a “term”. Maybe they decided on the ‘term’, since Dick Pound is a hated man, that he wasn’t going to be very effective. Every time he opened his mouth he pissed off a whole lot of people, that are very vocal about the way they feel.
I feel the same way about George Bush, and I have to put up with him for 2 more years…..
Sorry, off subject. Greg Lemond is interviewing without actually, bashing Floyd. Or at least not mentioning his name. The riders’ really need a union, a real UNION, to protect their interests. And I’m sick of hearing about 200 bags of blood in Spain, allegedly ALL cyclists!! That is not true, proven, and crappy media coverage. I wonder if we will ever know the truth about that.
Theresa,
I was under the same impression as you, that Dick Pound would be a “dictator for life.” I also wonder if the rest of the WADA board has grown tired of his public missives that have cast as much muck on the anti-doping organization as on the athletes themselves.
I agree, also, that it is high time the riders had a union representing them and looking out for their interests. Perhaps some of what’s been happening to Floyd and all the Puerto-istas would have been handled much differently (and more discreetly up to the point that riders had been actually found guilty of doping or other illegal behavior) if a strong riders’ union existed.
Greg LeMond seems to be moderating his comments. I’m not sure why or what’s gotten into him, but I think overall that it’s a good thing that he take it down a notch or two. He’s hurt his own image by wading in too deeply before all the facts of various cases were known. And though it probably comes from good intentions (the road to Hell, after all, is paved with good intentions), cleaning up the sport doesn’t come from a former star mouthing off whenever a microphone gets stuck in his face. Especially when he has as little information about what’s going on as the rest of us.
Operation Puerto, I suspect, is going to go down in cycling and sports history as one of the biggest anti-doping debacles of all time. It’s certainly not painted the process in a very good light, and it has allowed people like McQuaid and Pound and their ilk to make an even bigger mockery of the system — as if they haven’t already done enough in that regard.
– Rant