Pound for pound, one of the best Olympians ever photo: Courtesy of Dick Pound

"People didn't start making jokes about my name until I was a student in university," says Pound, who competed as a swimmer in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, and won four medals - gold, a bronze and two silvers - at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Australia at the age of 20. "Even today at McGill, one of the [students'] websites says, 'Our chancellor sounds like a porn star!'"

Well, one thing is true: Dick Pound is a star. He may not have won any medals as an Olympic athlete, but he has become the biggest champion of the Olympic Games. In 2005, Time Magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people for being the "prime mover in freeing the Olympic world from the taint of illicit, performance-enhancing drugs, and he isn't going to stop until he has all the world's sports in his tent."

But getting the heads of sports leagues and federations to listen to him hasn't been easy.

Which is why he wrote his just-published, critically acclaimed book Inside Dope: How Drugs Are the Biggest Threat to Sports, Why You Should Care, and What Can Be Done About Them (Wiley Canada), the most compelling book about doped-up athletes since former baseball All-Star Jose Canseco's notorious tell-all Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.

About losing the 2001 IOC leadership race to Jacques Rogges, Pound says, "I probably won't [run again]. You win or you lose. It's part of the competition."

But in his book, Pound insists that winning isn't everything, and that if parents don't teach this to their children, then sports no longer have value as a social and educational tool.

About Canada's national sport and the hockey players children idolize across the Great White North, Pound estimates: "One-third of NHL players were doping [in 2005]. I based this on information WADA had from former players, coaches, team officials and doctors who treated hockey teams at various levels in the hockey system.

Pound continues, "Like any other league, the NHL has a problem and I have spoken with [league commissioner Gary] Bettman. But instead of having a meaningful program, he wants to stick to one that only tests for steroids. I feel like I'm knocking my head on a brick wall."

Clearly Pound is persona non grata in many sports leagues. "Some commissioners will take my call," Pound says. "But they've allowed themselves to get trapped by their collective bargaining agreements, where they are not allowed to test players, or the sanctions are so minuscule that they don't matter."

About Major League Baseball, Pound says, "I think it's pretty clear Barry Bonds doesn't seriously deny he used [steroids]."

Pound dismisses MLB commissioner Bud Selig's half-hearted attempts to stop doping and instead congratulates journalists Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, authors of the Barry Bonds tell-all book Game of Shadows, currently facing jail time for not revealing who their sources were. "Protecting your sources is important to investigative journalism," Pound says.

Besides, he notes, "Sports fans feel betrayed and upset. Athletes are looked upon as gladiators. But the dark side of pro sports is that it is entertainment, pure and simple."

 
 

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Pound for Pound     Doping in sports is a serious problem, but the way in which Dick Pound goes about his business is questionable at best. In essence, he's a bit of an attention-whore, which in some ways can be a good thing in that it brings more media attention to the issue, but it is hardly an ethical way of doing so. The plethora of unfounded accusations that escape his lips are insulting to the athletes that have worked their asses off to get where they are, only to be undercut by some loudmouth with a self-righteous hard-on. There are certainly discrepancies in the way in which the tests are applied throughout professional sports, of that there is no question, but what most people don't realize is that there exist the same glaring discrepancies in the manner in which the drug results are tested. In fact, they often have no idea what the athletes are supposedly taking, they simply say "This isn't the normal level of so-and-so chemical", and then someone ends up losing a gold medal for taking cough medicine. The point is, Pound might have found a worthy cause, but he sure hasn't done a good job of making his case.
Raymond Lemoine	{62 votes}	November 23rd, 2006
Doping In Sports Continues     Pound grew up in an era when all we heard of were steriods now there is so much more on the market right? Obvoiusly there must have been a demand for all that variety but that doesn't justify its presence and availability to athletes that are supposed to come through clean. Sorry, doping is not just an unfortunate consequence of the sports industry that pushes athletes to excel and I won"t accept any analogies to marijuana that has its medicinal purposes and is considered safe in many circles. That has nothing to do with building muscles mass and stamina. So I wouldn't want to remove roadblocks just because the athlete has to deal with peer pressures or because taking dope is common. Given that it has become more common doesn't mean it has to become legal...unless everybody just shrugs it off or it is looked at like prostitution is, you know you can get it, bitch about it if you can't, on paper it's illegal in countries below a threshold level, but is otherwise legal in itself. Everyone should then have the opportunity to have access to the stuff not a select few, so that the parameters affecting all athletes would be the same. Is that going to happen in my life time?I see that the trend for certain athletes to have access to muscle enhancers is only going to continue...
Martin Dansky	{4 votes}	December 6th, 2006
News flash!     Doping in sports is unfortunate I don't see it going away that easily, do you? If we live in a society that encourages success and victory over sportsmanship and honest work. Fair play always sounds great on paper but ask any athlete if as kids they were drilled with the dogma that losing is just not an option. Fathers, coaches, whoever... the pressure is always there, always will be. Factor in fame and endorsement deals and I dare you to tell me that you won't be tempted. Maybe one day doping won't be an issue but just stopping the actual doping won't stop the fundamental psychology that created the problem to begin with.
Pedro Eggers	{10 votes}	November 28th, 2006
Pound Pressure!     Dick Pound, yeah that's a monicker that's going to make you the butt of countless porn jokes and phallic allusions. Thankfully, his name commands more respect than anything else by virtue of his unwavering integrity and commitment to fairness in sports. Don't kind yourself - were it not for his herculean efforts, the Barry Bonds and Marion Jones of the world would still, no doubt, be cheating with relative impunity!
Mark St Pierre	{11 votes}	November 26th, 2006
Not only unfair     While I have never been a fan of athletes abusing their bodies with foreign substances for the sake of sport, in the last year my disgust at such a practice has only grown. A friend who was an athlete, had all of a sudden - despite looking like a God - just died all of a sudden of a heart attack in his 20's. No one said why it happened, but a lot of people had suspicious thoughts about what the cause really was. A goddamn waste is losing this young man, to what is essentially substance abuse of a poison for no other reason than to look/perform better in something that isn't going to change the world. Bravo to pound for aiming to stop other people from losing their loved ones like we all did.
Rob Postuma	{11 votes}	November 25th, 2006
Money makes the sports go round, eh....     Sports were best when performed by amateur athletes like in schools, playgrounds and picnics. When money and lucrative endorsements are involved the sky's the limit. The publicity and huge contracts create a motivation for athletes to do anything to achieve their goals. The ridiculous salaries offered is insane...no one deserves that kind of money..not even ceos or politicians or the mafiosas. So the taxpayers, consumers and ticket buyers are the ones who are compelled to fork over their hard-earned money to enrich the athletes. Mr. Pound means well but he is losing the battle just like the americano's War on Drugs and let's us not get into the illegal wars. I personally don't attend any professional sports like baseball, basketball or hockey in our great city of Toronto unless someone graciously offers me free tickets. And if I do go I do not purchase the high-priced junk food at the premises. One exception is the Masters Tennis here which provide a free Family Day and we can't pass that up, eh.
Lewie Miya	{13 votes}	November 23rd, 2006

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