IOC dean speaks: Richard Pound on Japan and covid

TOKYO - Richard Pound is a lawyer, but he could be a journalist: few are as skilled as he is in the art of generating headlines. A man of clear and not always sympathetic ideas, in December 2022 he will end 44 years as a member of the IOC. In the run-up to Tokyo 2020, he says he is in awe of what the Japanese have done.

“It’s like a 747 coming into land and they say ‘stop! wait for one year, and then continue your landing’. I can’t imagine any other society who would be able to put that together”, Pound said in an extensive interview with Around the Rings in Tokyo.

The former Olympic swimmer is the doyen, the man who was there when none of his colleagues had yet arrived at the IOC (International Olympic Committee). And that’s partly why he has so much to say.

- Which headline would you choose for this Games if you were a journalist?

- (thinks for half a minute) Great sports, not much support, not public enthusiasm. The whole Japanese situation got out of control. In social media and so on, people with no responsibility make all kinds of predictions. And the people who actually have responsibilities were convinced they could be done and they did it. But it got stirred up in the media, and it’s a pity, because it’s actually been a miracle that this country was able to organize one of the most complex organizations in the world. It’s like a 747 coming into land and they say “stop! wait for one year, and then continue your landing”. I can’t imagine any other society who would be able to put that together.

- You have to be a very good pilot

- Very good pilot...

- Are the Games victims of a toxic environment like they never experienced before?

- We had nothing like that, a pandemic and a postponement. It’s all new, uncharted, far more complex than we thought it was gonna be. The postponement and restart...

- But the situation is also related to the fact that the Japanese government didn’t manage to vaccinate their people in order to reach a safer and more relaxed environment. Did you have any exchange with Japanese authorities which allowed you to understand why this happened?

- I’m not part of this discussion. Basically you tend, as the IOC, to do what the organizing committee wants. This was the organizing committee plus the government. They seem to think that people coming to Japan are going to increase the spread of the infection in Japan. All the people that are coming in are in a bubble. The village, here at this hotel... We are not coughing into the faces of the local residents! I don’t know if this a traditional concern about foreigners in Japan or if this is related to the pandemic, but if you look into the statistics, people coming in were not bringing anything they have to be afraid of.

- Does this mean that the system works? Ocha, the bubble, the quarantine...

- What they’ve done worked. System works, social distance works, keeping your hands clean works.

- Are you surprised that such a big economy like Japan, such a technological country, failed to vaccinate their citizens on time?

- I don’t know what the answer to that is. Maybe when they started they thought they could have a Japanese vaccine, produced at the speed of the Pfizers, the AstraZenecas, Modernas. That didn’t work. I don’t know... For a society that is extremely well organized, that doesn’t seem understandable. But look at this: how long it took from the identification of a disease to find a cure? The smallpox took 2,000 years, polio, hundred years, HIV 20 years... and getting the vaccine for covid, four months. Everyone is working together and cooperating... It’s amazing what they did. But, why didn’t Japan do it? I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

- Changing the subject: The new sports, what’s your impression about them?

- I have two impressions. I’m almost 80 years old, so I have a classic view of what an Olympic sport should be. But on the other side, the world is changing, the consumption of sports is different, and if you see the younger generations, they have the things that they like. And they like sport climbing, BMX... That’s ok, they are all difficult. I think 3x3 basketball is a huge success. Climbing? I don’t know. The breakdancing...

- What do you think about breakdancing for Paris 2024?

- Well, is not my idea of an Olympic sport, but the greater sports community and the IOC said that this appeals to the younger generation. Ok. We try, we see. The Olympic program is always a work in progress.

- And surfing? It was their debut in Tokyo.

- Surfing... It’s not my idea of an Olympic sport, but there is a big following in the world. It certainly requires skill and ability, it’s not a couch potato sport.

- Is there any sport which is not part of the Olympics you would like to see as part of the program?

- Squash.

- Yes, they tried, but they failed.

- I think that was because the international federation leadership was not smart. It is a little hard, the ball is smaller, it moves faster, but now with the glass courts...

- You mean that it’s a hard sport for broadcasters.

- Yes, but it’s cheap, now you move the court around, disassemble it, it’s not an expensive sport.

Pound lifts up his trouser cuff to reveal a deep gash across much of his tibia: “That was squash. I played for 30 years”.

- Would like to have your opinion about the new bidding process... We used to have an Oscar-style ceremony when the Games were awarded, and now there is such a low profile. Do you like this new system?

- What happened is that the old system didn’t work. Now you have to make sure that the people in potential host countries understand. To sit down with the cities and see how we can make this work for their countries. You can have some events in a different city... Let’s talk, let’s see how we can do it. And I think that is the only way it can work. You know, in the democratic countries, at least 25 percent of the people are against everything all the time. If you start an Olympic bid, you start with 25 percent against. And it gets polarized very easily, and it’s much easier to be against something than to be in favor. The system was not working, so let’s try a new one. It sort of worked between Paris and Los Angeles, not the full system, but the discussion about two world class cities, is there a way we can have the Olympic Games in both and not just one? Paris said we can hold it together for 2024, but not another four years. Los Angeles said we would like 2024, but we can hold it together. That worked well, that was smart. And take the 2026 Winter Games, they were actually almost offered to Calgary, they said please, we are not really happy with Stockholm or Milano/Cortina, could Calgary do it again? And Calgary hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmm. And so we got in 2032 a very good bid with Brisbane, a country you can rely on.

- Do you see Salt Lake City with chances for 2030 against Vancouver?

- No, I don’t see Salt Lake City, because they’ve got 2028. I think it will confuse their marketing strategy and the publicity and everything. They’ve tried Atlanta and Salt Lake, 1996 and 1998. Not two Games in a row in the same country. I think that Vancouver 2030 would be a very strong bid.

Beyond the difficulty that Los Angeles 2028 implies for an eventual Salt Lake City 2030, Canada has its own problems: the country is shaken by the discoveries this year of the remains of hundreds and hundreds of indigenous children who died in residential schools. Their bodies rarely returned home, many were buried in neglected graves. The discovery of the bodies prompted national outrage and calls for further searches of unmarked graves.

- Does this affect Vancouver’s bid?

- One of the elements of the bid has to be to have strong First Nations support. Involved in first Nations communities, First Nations people, involved in the organizing committee, that would be important, particularly in British Columbia.

- It looks like an enormous tragedy when you read what happened in your country.

- Well... Yes, I’m not sure it is as bad as is portrayed. The cemeteries they are finding... Some of them were ordinary cemeteries, with people from the communities, not all residential schools pickups. Somebody needs to look back at info of mortality a hundred years ago, which is probably twice as much as it would be today.

- You mean that some of the deaths were because of natural causes?

- Not because of the residential schools, that’s what the mortality was.

- And what do you expect, is your country going to be able to solve it or is it going to be a nonending discussion?

- It will be a discussion that will go on for some time. Now there are 30 fewer people alive that were actually in the residential schools. We have a truth and reconciliation commission, at some point you have to turn the page. Learn from that, but turn the page. We are now in the 21st century, not in the 19th century. It’s a serious problem. It’s a problem that has been repeated in Australia, in the United States, in Finland. Is a problem we have to come to terms with.

- We are only a few months away from another Olympic Games, the Beijing Winter Games in February 2022. And they look very complicated too.

- Games in the 21st century are complicated. Because of the number of moving parts and the great interest around the world. We have billions of people interested and tens of thousands of people involved. The minute you pick the host city and you pick the dates of the Games, all sorts of things start to happen: sports schedule, transportation, security, everything... And let’s not forget that until 1992 we had the same thing between Summer and Winter Games, a very short distance, very close to each other. We had the Games in the same year, so, it’s not the end of the world.

- There is a Congressional Committee from the United States Congress asking for some kind of boycott of the Beijing Games. What do you think about that?

- Well, I think that sensible people like Mitt Romney say that this is not the answer, we’ve seen what happens with boycotts, there is conduct change in the target country. If we are mad at the Chinese government because of its policies, we can make that clear. We cannot have any government officials in Beijing, we can call the ambassador on consultations, all sorts of things. We are not going to say, in effect, we are so angry with China, with your infringement of human rights, that we are going to infringe our human rights and prevent the athletes going to the Games.

- A boycott would mean to infringe the human rights of athletes? You say this as a lawyer?

- Yes, yes. To prevent them from going, to withdraw passports, whatever technique you use, that’s an infringement on human rights to show you are mad at the Chinese infringing human rights. But, you know, even China can’t exist alone in terms of trade and other relations, so, if there is a sufficient number of governments that send a strong message, Chinese will have to listen. Beijing didn’t win the 2022 Olympics by a big margin, four votes, maybe, between little Almaty and Beijing? If I was a Chinese political analyst I would say that we have a problem, we almost lost against Almaty.

- Can you elaborate more about the meaning of this?

- Among the independent IOC members almost half of them did not want to go to Beijing. And not because of the lack of organizations. There is a political disagreement with the position of China in Hong Kong and other cases.

- This congressional committee is also putting pressure on Olympic sponsors. Does this make sense?

- No, an American would say that’s “grandstanding”. It’s really Congress at its worst.

- Some of the sponsors said we can’t do what you don’t do, which is also what the IOC usually says.

- Yeah. That’s right. Sketch first your scenario then come and talk to us.

- You’ve been a WADA president. Does WADA work?

- Yeah, yeah, actually now WADA is getting more power from our stakeholders. We looked for that for years and years, the power to drive and conduct the investigations, because we couldn’t do our own. We are still not allowed to impose a sanction. All we could do for years, and years and years, was to recommend to the IOC, to the International Federations... There is a rule violation, there is this, and this, and this, you should act. But we knew that most of the International Federations have no interest at all, the IOC have no interest at all in following the WADA investigation and the McLaren report. The only tangible results of the investigation were with the IAAF and the IPC. Testing is... you have to be lucky. You have to find the right person at the right time during a period. Some of them work, but quite often it doesn’t. And we have a horrible system where unless you miss three tests in twelve months or 18 months you can play the system. What I would do is that if you are supposed to be here and do a test, I send you an email so you come tomorrow, and if you are not here you missed the second test, and if you don’t come the next day you have three violations and it’s over.

- You just said that the IOC didn’t show interest in the McLaren investigation, what did you mean?

- McLaren gave the report prior to Rio. I think McLaren said “listen, you should at least tell the IOC what I’d found before the Games. If it turns out at the Games and I knew before the Games but I didn’t tell what the results were they’d say “ah, WADA” So instead the IOC said this is not a report this is just an allegation.

An allegation was the finding of one of the most experienced investigators in the world and eventually the IOC agreed with all of the findings with one exception. They didn’t seem to find that the FSB was involved. (Laughs)

- You’re laughing.

- Really, truly. And there was only a really minor sanction for Pyeongchang. The Russian Olympic Committee was kept out but they were going to let them back in before the end of the Games. Probably would’ve except half the doping cases in Pyeongchang were Russians. So I don’t think we’ve been firm enough on that but now we have a process where we have a... call it a conduct review committee that gets a report. The conduct report committee looks at it and if they agree with it they say yes, WADA should act on that, which they did. So in the case of the Russians with the alteration of the computer data they looked at it and said they’d been tampered with, they’d been altered, suppressed, it’s a doping violation. We recommend a four year suspension because it’s an activity that’s gone on for 10 years or more and we didn’t have to persuade the IOC, we didn’t have to persuade the IFs, we just told the Russians this is what we propose you either accept the sanction or it goes directly to CAS. You don’t have the “oh please IOC, please IF, take action”.

- Russia is a big country, a powerful country... Had this happened to Colombia, Bangladesh or Kenya...

- (laughs) If it happened to Canada it would be out for sure... They seem to think Russia is too important a country to be excluded from the Games. And I’m the opposite. I say the Olympics are too important for Russia to be kicked out because they are cheating. That would have been the deterrent. Because there are lots of countries, Russia’s not the only one, many of them. Kenya had a problem, Spain had a problem, the United States had a problem, all kinds of other countries have had problems.

- But not the state doping at the level of Russia, with the case of Spain you would not compare...

- No, no, not Spain. But that was just an unwillingness to act upon the investigation of the Operación Puerto.

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