Pound defends WADA election process, work of organization
MADRID: Outgoing WADA president Dick Pound has said the process for choosing his successor was sabotaged by the withdrawal of European candidate Jean-Francois Lamour.
"The process got off the rails because the candidate who had worked very hard to become the European nominee withdrew without consulting anyone," Pound told a news conference at the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Madrid.
"He wouldn't answer my phone calls, he didn't advise France, he didn't advise the authorities or his colleagues. He simply went to a press conference and made a whole bunch of critical comments about WADA, the very organization of which he had been vice president 10 minutes before he made the announcement.
"It was very unfortunate. It was bad for him, bad for France and bad for Europe. If they picked the wrong candidate who was not willing to fight for Europe's position then that's Europe's fault, but they can't blame the rest of the world for it."
Lamour, a former sports minister in France, was a leading candidate to succeed Pound as president until the late candidacy of Australian John Fahey.
"I don't want to be the president of a body that does not have the strength and the dynamism to fight against doping," Lamour said when he announced his withdrawal last month.
Pound defended the organization, saying that the new anti-doping code that is being presented at the Madrid conference was proof that the organization was up to the job.
"One of the main improvements in the code is having tougher sanctions in the case of aggravated doping," said Pound.
"We also want to make sure we don't end up having sanctions that are too strong in cases where we are dealing with accidental doping."
Pound highlighted other measures such as more rapid testing of "B" samples following an initial positive and the development of a non-invasive test to detect genetic manipulation as evidence of progress being made.
Agencies
(China Daily 11/16/2007 page23)
