Pound Rebukes Russian Response to Doping Scandal, Praises Journalist

(ATR) Richard Pound swiftly shot down Russian sport minister Vitaly Mutko’s reaction to allegations of widespread doping in Russian athletics, the government official urging WADA to focus on "real facts and evidence."

"It’s clear that he hasn’t read the report – it’s only in English, so I doubt very much that he has," Pound told Around the Rings in an exclusive interview at IOC Headquarters in Lausanne on Tuesday, less than 24 hours since the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Independent Commission released its shocking findings.

"Ministers have people who read these things for them and if someone has read it all the way through, they’re going to come back and say ‘minister, this isn’t just somebody blowing smoke,’" Pound said.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov followed Mutko’s remarks on Tuesday calling the allegations "groundless."

Pound’s Independent Commission delivered its explosive 335-page report on Monday unveiling explicit details surrounding widespread, state-sponsored systemic doping and related cover-ups in Russian athletics.

"I think we were all surprised at the extent of what was going on and it shows that there are a lot of clean athletes out there that are getting screwed," said Pound. "Probably not just by Russia and certainly not just in Athletics."

Pound said that this case is vastly different than the usual heresy sometimes witnessed in other doping accusations.

"There’s often lots of suspicion and rumor and never any hard evidence – this was different in the sense that we had hard evidence to start with and we could follow up and expand on it from there."

Asked directly if Russia to be suspended, Pound replied: "We left a big, big opening for Russia to do something if it wants to. If it wants to say there are no facts and so on, that’s not credible anymore."

All the President’s Men

Pound commended German journalist Hajo Seppelt, who tipped allegations of the scandal in two ARD documentaries airing last December, the first titled "Top secret Doping: How Russia makes its Winners."

The longstanding Canadian IOC member and former Olympic swimmer compared Seppelt’s painstaking pursuits to that of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, famed for uncovering the Watergate scandal in the 1970’s and leading to the resignation of U.S. president Richard Nixon.

"To some degree, it’s like ‘All the Presidents Men’ with Bernstein and Woodward," Pound said, referring to the 1976 film about the duo of Washington Post journalists.

"To our mind, it is a very good example of what can be do with an investigative press that is prepared to get in there and follow some of these leads," said Pound, who founded WADA in1999.

"We made a point to acknowledge this at the press conference and also the whistleblowers," Pound said referring to the IC’s more than one-hour long press conference in Geneva on Monday.

"It made a huge difference for us to start with a base of reliable evidence," he said of Seppelt’s work.

"We started to come across that it looked like it wasn’t just sport fraud, but major criminal stuff which is beyond our ability to deal with so we packaged that and relied on our relationship with Interpol.

"They introduced us to the French Authorities and they’re off and running."

The Future of International Sport

Pound hope that the respective bodies and stakeholders will do their job and act accordingly to the IC’s recommendation to suspend Russian Athletics and issue lifetime bans for five athletes.

"We’ve done our job, it’s now up to the people who have the authority to act," Pound said. "It looks like the IOC is considering a provisional suspension of Lamine Diack, Seb Coe is getting his executive council together to consider measures and WADA is getting together next week in Colorado Springs, so I think things will happen."

Pound said he spoke briefly with IOC president Thomas Bach on Tuesday, on what is a busy week in Lausanne with the International Federations Forum, SportAccord General Assembly and various IOC commission meetings all taking place.

"It’s certainly a serious matter for him and the problem is you now got two of the biggest federations in the world up to their rear ends in alligators and that’s not good for all of us," Pound said referring to Bach, FIFA and IAAF.

Pound said he still has hope for the future of international sport if the proper measures are taken, problems are honestly addressed and faithful governance is restored

"It can recover, if it has a will to recover," Pound said. "The ball is now in the court of sport, you prove yourself.

Two of your biggest sports are in deep, deep trouble, and its credibility trouble, so persuade us that you’ve taken us seriously and done the right thing.

"Persuade us that if I put my kid into sport x, he or she is not going to get screwed by crooked officials, dopers and what not.

"It’s an interesting test."

Written by Brian Pinelli

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