Inside Dope - How Drugs Are the Biggest Threat to Sports, Why You Should
Care, and What Can Be Done About Them
Book description
An IOC insider speaks out on creating a drug-free sports culture
With doping charges leveled at athletes in baseball, cycling, and in
the Olympics, cheating has, to many onlookers, become the norm in pro
sports. With implications far beyond the sports arena, Inside Dope
examines the genesis of doping in sports as well as in the world of
doctors and trainers; drug testing and the battle to stay ahead of
users; drug companies and big business; and the role of the World
Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as watchdog. Written by a former Olympian,
an IOC official, and a passionate advocate of fair play in sports,
this eye-opening book takes a candid look at testing standards and the
future of doping and sports and the larger issue of how doping affects
the public perception of athletes.
Richard W. Pound is the founder and chair of the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), an independent foundation created in
1999 to promote and coordinate the fight against doping in sport
internationally. In 2005, he was named by TIME magazine as one of the
TIME 100, the world's 100 most influential people. TIME called “the
relentless Dick Pound” 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 the
tent.”
Pound has been a member of the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) for over 25 years and has served as a member of the
IOC Executive Board, vice-president, and acting president. He was also
Chairman of the IOC Television Negotiation Committee (1983-2001), and
Chairman of the IOC Marketing Committee until 2001, in the process
making the IOC one of the most successful sport organizations in the
world. He served as the Chair of the Coordination Commission for the
1996 Olympic Games, and as a director of the Organizing Committee for
the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary, Alberta. It was partly
because of Pound's investigation of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal
that new regulations and an ethics watchdog to oversee interaction
between IOC members and bidding cities were created. He is a past
president, director, and executive committee member of the Canadian
Olympic Committee.
Born in Canada in 1942, Pound began his
athletic career as a competitive swimmer. At the 1960 Olympic Games in
Rome, he was a double Olympic finalist, finishing fourth in the 400
meter medley relay and sixth in the 100 meter freestyle. He went on to
win four medals-a gold, a bronze, and two silvers-at the 1962
Commonwealth Games in Australia.
Pound was educated in Montreal,
receiving degrees in commerce and law from McGill. He is currently a
partner in the law firm Stikeman Elliott. In 1999, he was made the
seventeenth chancellor of McGill University.
