Pound makes one Russian see red
Canadian anti-doping czar target of accusations by disgraced former sporting official
Dick Pound can’t help but chuckle over the irony of the complaint lodged against him with the International Olympic Committee’s ethics commission.
The complainant? None other than Valentin Balakhnichev, the former president of the All-Russia Athletics Federation who just happens to be serving a lifetime ban for allegedly accepting bribes to cover up Russian doping cases.
The sport at issue? Soccer, not track and field.
“It’s one of these incomprehensible Russian actions in relation to all this doping stuff,” the Montreal-based Pound, founding president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, told Postmedia. “It’s kind of a strange guy to be dealing with something not even in his own sport.”
Balakhnichev accused Pound of counselling countries to boycott the 2018 World Cup in Moscow, thus breaking the sporting rules of impartiality and neutrality. The claim is based on an interview Pound did with a Russian reporter.
“The hosting of tournaments, including the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia, will be a consensus reached within FIFA,” Pound told R-Sport. “Nevertheless, we mustn’t rule out that some countries can simply refuse to take part in the Russian World Cup in response to their doping history, and it will be the beginning of the possibility of stripping Russia of the right to host.”
Pound was referring to Russia losing world championships in biathlon, bobsled and skeleton after countries threatened to boycott.
“If important football countries start to say they’re not going to come and participate in Russia, then at some point FIFA has to decide what to do about it,” Pound said. “But as far as me counselling other countries not to go to Russia for football is nonsense. I never did that. This is just a tactic that’s designed to draw attention from the risk that Russia now has with respect to FIFA. It’s probably an attempt to keep me from talking about these things. But it’s not going to work.”
Pound, 74, is the longest-serving member on the IOC. Dealing with intimidation tactics is nothing new.
“Having been around the IOC for all these years, death threats are actually a little more common than you would think,” he said. “But I think in this case, if I get a bad cold, the Russians are going to get blamed for it.”
On Monday, the IAAF announced Russia will not be permitted to compete at the world athletics championships in London this August.
Yet to be decided by the IOC: the status of Russia for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, after a report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren detailed systemic doping by Russia at the 2014 Sochi Games.
“There’s a state-sponsored system of doping and evading the outcomes of doping,” Pound said. “The FSB (formerly known as the KGB) is not a local boy scout group. That’s the state security agency, which presumably acts on the basis of instructions given by whoever is responsible for it.”
In response to the McLaren report, the various international winter sports federations were charged with investigating the allegations against the athletes in their respective sports. One by one, news of suspensions is trickling out.
Last week, Russian Olympic bobsled champ Dmitry Trunenkov was banned from his sport for four years.
“If you are the IOC, you can’t go around saying, ‘We have zero tolerance for doping, unless of course it’s Russia,’ ” Pound said. “The big guys have to play by the same rules as everybody else. You know what the outcome would have been if it were Canada or Guatemala or something like that? We would have been bounced in a heartbeat.”
n Moguls skier Audrey Robichaud put out an all-points bulletin on Twitter Tuesday for a ski bag that went missing on her flight from Salt Lake City to Korea, via Toronto, for an Olympic test event in Pyeongchang. The bag contains all the tools of her trade from skis to poles to her mouthguard and ski suit.
n Sage Watson, of Medicine Hat, Alta, set a new NCAA Div. 1 indoor record over 500 metres last week in New York City. The 2016 Olympian and current Arizona Wildcat stopped the clock in one minute, 8.40 seconds at the Armory Invitational.
n Is there a Canadian winter athlete on a more torrid pace than short track speedskater Marianne St-Gelais this World Cup season? St-Gelais nabbed gold in the 500m and 1,000m, along with relay bronze, last weekend in Dresden, Germany.
n Ottawa’s John Leslie (lower-limb impairment) finished fifth Tuesday in banked slalom at the World Para Snowboard Championships in Kelowna. Alex Massie, of Barrie, Ont. was sixth. Curtis Minard, of Vernon placed fifth in the upper-limb category for banked slalom.