Richard Pound on sport and doping

By Frank Kuin

Richard Pound recently gave students in Concordia’s Department of Exercise Science a first-hand account of the establishment of the international anti-doping agency.

Pound, a prominent member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), recounted his leading role in the establishment of the international organization in a lecture to a Sports Law class.

He told the students that to make Montreal-based WADA a success in the long run, a shift in attitudes is needed in the way the world of sport views the use of performance-enhancing substances.

“In the end, our aim is not just to catch a few athletes who have taken performance-enhancing drugs,” Pound said of the agency, which oversees doping tests at the Olympic Games and other sports events. “Rather, we have to change the mindset, make athletes realize that taking drugs is wrong and dangerous for their health.”

Pound, a former Olympic swimmer who was instrumental in negotiating the international agreements underpinning WADA’s battle against doping, reckons that it might take a couple of generations to achieve that shift.

Asked when he would consider the “war against drugs in sports” won, he replied: “When 99.9 per cent of athletes don’t use doping, not just because they’re afraid of getting caught, but because it’s dangerous for their health.”

Even then, “there’s always going to be someone willing to cheat. We want to be able to guarantee to those playing fair that we take out the remaining 0.1 per cent.”

Pound has been a regular guest lecturer in Exercise Science, and has been an adjunct professor there since 1988 – an unlikely side gig at first glance, as he is also the chancellor of McGill University.

His association with Concordia – aside from the fact that he holds an Arts degree from Sir George Williams University – has to do with his long friendship with George Short, a veteran professor in Exercise Science.

The two met at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, where Pound competed as a swimmer and Short as a sprinter in the 100 metres.

“We were Olympic athletes together, so there’s a special relationship because of that,” Short recalled. “We were just young kids when we met.”

Over the past 16 years, Pound “has always made himself available” to talk to his class, Short said. As Short had just been teaching about mandatory drug testing in his course, a talk about WADA was a perfect fit, he said.

Still, it was the last time Pound spoke to Short’s class, as Short is retiring from Concordia after 31 years.

Short joined Sir George Williams as athletics director in 1973. He came to Exercise Science in 1988, and was involved in the graduate diploma in Sports Administration program, established in co-operation with the Faculty of Commerce and Administration, as it was then known.

He said it was “tremendous” to have Pound, who rubs shoulders routinely with international heavyweights in sports and in government, come talk to his students on a yearly basis.

Pound told them how challenging it had been to get all interested parties – including athletes, sports federations, national Olympic committees and governments in all parts of the world – to agree on an international anti-doping code.

But great progress has been made in drafting such a document, the World Anti-Doping Code, and achieving international agreement on it in a relatively short time, he said.

“It’s the first time in the history of sports that you have all people necessary for a solution at the same table, and playing the same music.”