Pound Says More Inquiries Possible

(ATR)World Anti-Doping Agency Independent Commission chairmanRichard Pound says he believes positive measures towards cleaner sport are inevitable following the release of the second damning report issued by his commission.

The 89-page report released on Jan. 14 details misdeeds, corruption and cover-ups by former International Association of Athletics Federation president Lamine Diack and his confidants pertaining to widespread doping practices in Russia.

"I think from an athletics perspective it has to happen, there’s no alternative and it has to happen fairly quickly," Pound told Around the Rings following a nearly one-hour long news conference he conducted alongside members Richard McLaren and Guenter Younger.

"From the perspective of other sports, there are a bunch of people saying ‘Holy shit, look what happened to athletics and one of its biggest countries. We better get our own house in order.’"

Ominously, Pound said that systemic doping practices are not limited to Russia and the sport of athletics. The longstanding Canadian IOC member and president of WADA from 1999-2007 would not rule future investigations into other sports and federations.

"Possibly – and then maybe it’s for those federations to say ‘why don’t we stop breathing our own exhaust here and get somebody to come in and look at if we are doing it right,’" Pound said.

Pressed on why he believes changes and reforms in sport will finally result from this latest scandal, Pound once again said that it is inevitable.

"After Ben Johnson in Seoul, I thought it would be a whole new world and it wasn’t," Pound said of the Canadian sprinter who was stripped of his gold medal for a positive test at the 1988 Games.

"But I think people are starting to understand that it really affects the credibility of sport and you’re going to get sponsors saying ‘why am I doing this’ you’re going to get broadcasters saying ‘why are we putting this on’ and you’re going to get spectators saying ‘why am I going to this if it’s fixed.’"

"I think you’re then going to get into a death spiral which I don’t think anybody believed until pretty recently."

The Russian Whistleblower Stepanov

Pound said that Russian whistleblower Vitaliy Stepanov, who formerly worked for Russia’s anti-doping agency, initially came to WADA about his country’s systemic doping problem.

"Nobody knew what to do with it," Pound revealed. "I think he came to speak to people at WADA and we had no idea what to do with the information.

"We had no experience with it – who do you tell when you think this has gone off the rails?," Pound said.

"I think eventually we sort of steered them in the direction of Seppelt and that’s how it came to the point where people had to do something about it."

Stepanov and his wife Yuliya proceeded to reveal the dark secrets behind Russia’s culture of doping in a German documentary produced by investigative journalist Hajo Seppelt.

The program aired December 2014 and ignited the firestorm that led to the formation of the independent commission.

Pound said that discussions should take place regarding independent parties taking the reins from international federations to handle testing and compliance.

"There has to be consideration whether the answer is outsourcing all international federation compliance to a third party," he said. "I don’t know, let’s talk about it."

A Job Is Done

Pound advised that his work on the WADA Independent Commission is for the most part completed.

"We’ll fold this into the overall report so that there is a single document, and unless WADA says we want you to do something else, we’ll do a ‘Vietnam’ – we’ll declare victory and pull out," Pound said.

The 73-year-old told ATR that he is off to Florida to enjoy a vacation with his family.

Written by Brian Pinelli.