Pound poised to leave WADA after 8 turbulent years

Dick Pound has spent eight years challenging, confronting and cajoling sports bodies and governments to crack down on doping. Star athletes, pro leagues and sports administrators have all felt the sting of his broadsides.

LONDON — Dick Pound has spent eight years challenging, confronting and cajoling sports bodies and governments to crack down on doping. Star athletes, pro leagues and sports administrators have all felt the sting of his broadsides.
    So, as Pound prepares to step aside as president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, don't expect him to back off or show a softer side toward the drug cheats or his critics.
    ''You think we'd be where we are today if we all sat around holding hands going, Ohm, Ohm, Ohm?'' he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. ''This has something that has the capacity to destroy sport, and nobody else was prepared to do much about it.''
    Pound will preside over the Third World Conference on Doping in Sport in Madrid, Spain, which opens Thursday and runs through Saturday. It will be his swan song as delegates approve a revised set of global anti-doping rules and elect former Australian politician John Fahey to succeed him as head of the Montreal-based world body.
    Pound, a Canadian lawyer, has led WADA since its creation in 1999. He has overseen efforts to harmonize anti-doping rules across all sports and countries and to increase government involvement in the war against performance-enhancing drugs.
    ''More people are now aware of the existence of the problem and the extent of the problem and the degree to which it destroys everything that sports should stand for,'' Pound said. ''I think even the professional sports leagues and cycling are really on their back feet now. They're not able to get away with all the fluff they've been hoisting on the public for so long.''
    The Madrid conference comes near the close of another tumultuous year in doping, which included the stripping of Floyd Landis' 2006 Tour de France title and a confession by five-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones that she used banned substances.
    Pound has had public spats with seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong, international cycling officials and the NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball. He insists his outspoken, in-your-face approach is necessary to get people's attention.
    ''When you're dealing with organized and systematic and deliberate cheating, you have to confront it,'' Pound said. ''You can't pretend it doesn't exist. … It's not going to go away. It will only go away if you expose it to the light of day.''
    Inevitably, Pound has made some enemies along the way.
    Former International Cycling Union head Hein Verbruggen called Pound's leadership of WADA a ''catastrophe.''
    ''He says that to run that agency it's necessary to be controversial, but I didn't think you needed that and I don't think the stakeholders expected that,'' Verbruggen said. ''His style meant that the public believed every athlete was a suspected athlete. All he does is accuses. … Insulting people who don't fight the battle against doping is wrong, especially without proof.''
    But others believe Pound's words and actions were needed.
    ''He came in and he focused WADA's activities as they needed to be,'' IOC executive board member Gerhard Heiberg said. ''At this stage, (his style) has been right. I don't think it will continue to be like that, but it's been needed to get the athletes and organizations moving.''
    Pound isn't fazed by his critics.
    ''If you look at where the criticism is, you see where the problems are,'' he said. ''You are not going to get criticism from the athletes and coaches that are playing fair and the general public. You get it from the people identified as problems.''
    Pound has been particularly tough on the U.S. pro leagues for not applying the same level of testing and punishments as in Olympic sports.
    ''In the NFL you can go on a steroid program that lasts you for four years, and get a four-game suspension,'' he said. ''I'm sorry, that's just not a credible response.''
    Pound also said that ''many'' international sports federations are dragging their feet or simply refusing to comply fully with the World-Anti Doping Code, the global blueprint for testing rules and sanctions.
    ''Some of it is purportedly due to financial reasons, some of it is still tied up with denial that it's a problem, and for others it's frankly not a priority,'' he said.
    Due to be elected as new WADA president and taking over on Jan. 1 is Fahey, a former Australian finance minister and New South Wales leader. He became the only candidate after former French sports minister Jean-Francois Lamour — the long-time favorite — withdrew last month and attacked WADA for allowing Fahey's late entry into the race.
    ''It was left to the governments to decide their candidate,'' Pound said. ''The way it unfolded was messy and embarrassing, more for Lamour and France and Europe. Any uncertainty does not help WADA.''
    Fahey has little experience in the doping field, and Pound offered a terse comment when asked whether the Australian had the right credentials for the job.
    ''I don't know him well enough to make that kind of judgment,'' he said. ''I didn't know anything about it when I got involved either.''  
    Pound, meanwhile, won't disappear from the sports scene. He'll continue to serve as an IOC member (he lost a bid for the IOC presidency in 2001) and hopes to become president of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the highest tribunal in the sports world.
    ''Something always comes along,'' Pound said. ''Within sport, for anybody that has experience and energy and is willing, there can always be work.''
    — The Associated Press