:00:00. > :00:00.agencies that are supposed to prevent athletes using drugs?
:00:00. > :00:00.What can now be done about it, and should all sporting success be
:00:07. > :00:39.Dick Pound, welcome to HARDtalk. Ages 28 years since you were the
:00:40. > :00:45.Canadian Olympic official who had deal with the fallout with the Ben
:00:46. > :00:52.Johnson doping scandal at the 1998 Seoul Olympics. Has anything
:00:53. > :00:56.changed? Has doping become any less of a problem in the elite
:00:57. > :00:59.international sports? It is probably a greater problem in the sense that
:01:00. > :01:05.it is more sophisticated and better financed and organised. It is a ten
:01:06. > :01:12.most game of cheating and detection and it has moved along -- cat and
:01:13. > :01:17.mouse. The teachers are still ahead? The teachers are always ahead. He or
:01:18. > :01:20.she knows what they are going to take and when they're going to take
:01:21. > :01:25.it and you have to find a way to detect it. You were the founding
:01:26. > :01:30.chief of the World Anti-Doping Authority. You have spent a lot of
:01:31. > :01:37.your career focused on the crusade against doping. Would you say there
:01:38. > :01:39.has been a lack of will on those who govern and administrate
:01:40. > :01:47.international sport to deal with this? In general terms, yes. It
:01:48. > :01:50.seems to be easier to deny then to try to do something about it and
:01:51. > :01:54.every time you catch somebody, instead of the cup being half full,
:01:55. > :02:00.you have found someone who is cheating and taken them out, they
:02:01. > :02:04.regarded as the cup being half-empty and it is a terrible comment on
:02:05. > :02:10.their sport and their leadership. Let's talk about punishment and
:02:11. > :02:12.deterrence. Even when you were the boss of the World Anti-Doping
:02:13. > :02:16.Authority, there were questions about the degree to which you and
:02:17. > :02:21.your colleagues were committed to meeting a punishment that would
:02:22. > :02:28.really send an effective message. To take one random example, this
:02:29. > :02:32.printer Justin Gatlin, not once but twice he has been found to have used
:02:33. > :02:36.illegal substances. The first time his punishment was reduced to one
:02:37. > :02:41.year out of athletics and the second time it was reduced to four years
:02:42. > :02:45.from eight out of athletics and he has still managed to compete at the
:02:46. > :02:49.top level in Olympic Games and win medals. Doesn't that case suggest
:02:50. > :02:54.that you and many others have completely failed to establish real
:02:55. > :03:00.deterrence? We are far from perfect. But when we started it was
:03:01. > :03:03.a major fight to get all of the sports to come together to agree
:03:04. > :03:09.that the default punishment would be two years. What about a lifetime?
:03:10. > :03:17.What about it? As a former Olympic athlete, I say, we all promise to
:03:18. > :03:20.play by the rules. You didn't and I don't want to play with you
:03:21. > :03:24.anymore, ever. That's what I'm saying but you never impose a
:03:25. > :03:34.lifetime ban? None of the state courts will uphold it. Let's also
:03:35. > :03:38.talk about collective punishments. The IAAF, the body that governs
:03:39. > :03:42.international athletics, ask you to run a report last year on what is
:03:43. > :03:51.happening inside Russia. It was actually WADA. IAAF was part of the
:03:52. > :03:54.target. As a result of your report, the IAAF suspended Russia and
:03:55. > :03:58.Russian athletes from international competition. In athletics only. Was
:03:59. > :04:05.that the right thing to do? For sure. It was clear. Our report made
:04:06. > :04:10.it clear that the entire system was corrupted. So collective punishment.
:04:11. > :04:14.I don't know if you are believing that every single Russian athlete
:04:15. > :04:17.takes illegal substances, but if you are not, you have to accept that
:04:18. > :04:21.some innocent Russian athletes will suffer because of the actions of
:04:22. > :04:26.those who take the illegal substances. I think that's what you
:04:27. > :04:30.have to do to deter it. The athletes are all part of the system. Even if
:04:31. > :04:34.you are not taking this stuff yourself, you look around at all
:04:35. > :04:38.your teammates and you see that they are. So you are complicit, whether
:04:39. > :04:45.you are injecting or not. It is a different issue. In your view, given
:04:46. > :04:48.what you established, you use to some very harsh words, deep-rooted
:04:49. > :04:53.cultural treating in Russia, state-sponsored doping you called
:04:54. > :04:58.it. Even what you learned, do you believe that Russian athletes should
:04:59. > :05:04.be suspended, barge, blocked from participation in the real Olympic
:05:05. > :05:08.Games? We wrestled with that and it really wasn't the call of the
:05:09. > :05:14.commission to do that. Our conclusion was that if they owned up
:05:15. > :05:19.and started to try to fix it as of November last year when we gave our
:05:20. > :05:23.report, we thought it would be possible for them to get it cleaned
:05:24. > :05:31.up in time for Rio. That is as far as we went. That has been punted to
:05:32. > :05:35.the IAAF who has suspended them, so the Russians are already outside and
:05:36. > :05:38.trying to get back in. The German ARD network ran a document in March
:05:39. > :05:42.come along after November where they appeared to find evidence that many
:05:43. > :05:45.of the systemic problems that you have highlighted were still in
:05:46. > :05:49.place. Key personnel who were allegedly involved in the doping
:05:50. > :05:55.system had not been removed, it appeared that there were still
:05:56. > :06:02.warning signs that the doping culture was continuing. On that
:06:03. > :06:10.basis, you presumably have concluded Russia should be barred? No, once we
:06:11. > :06:15.do our report, we are like a surgeon, we do the incision, so what
:06:16. > :06:20.happened get out. Now the IAAF has its own task force working on this,
:06:21. > :06:24.chaired by an independent group who used to be with WADA. But her voice
:06:25. > :06:29.is very powerful and I am asking for your assessment. If you know that
:06:30. > :06:33.for example, a suspended coach is still, according to the German
:06:34. > :06:38.documentary, working with either the athletes, if you know that other key
:06:39. > :06:44.officials at the Russian anti- doping agency and the Russian sports
:06:45. > :06:47.ministry have not been changed, would it be your opinion that that
:06:48. > :06:55.suggests Russia hasn't made the steps necessary to get back to the
:06:56. > :07:02.X? I don't know what they know yet. -- to the Olympics. If they were
:07:03. > :07:08.just changing deck chairs on the Titanic and moving people around
:07:09. > :07:11.come out of sight and out of mind, then I would say there hasn't been
:07:12. > :07:18.the kind of change that we think is required. The reputational risk here
:07:19. > :07:23.is with the IAAF. What the Russians say, and this has just come out
:07:24. > :07:27.recently, is that they are prepared to have three independent doping
:07:28. > :07:32.tests for the athletes in the run-up to Rio, supervised by the IAAF, they
:07:33. > :07:35.are prepared to have independent IAAF officials work with their anti-
:07:36. > :07:42.doping agency inside Russia as a form of independent monitoring. The
:07:43. > :07:46.minister come out the Russian sports Minister, says we are now
:07:47. > :07:50.implementing all necessary measures. Would you take all necessary
:07:51. > :07:57.measures. Would you take a look ministerial statements have to be
:07:58. > :08:00.taken -- would you take a look at at at face value? Ministerial
:08:01. > :08:04.statements have to be taken for what they are. The task force will be
:08:05. > :08:08.looking at that very closely what the minister says is not anywhere
:08:09. > :08:12.near as important as what they find in practice. They find in practice.
:08:13. > :08:18.For ways to get them back, if they haven't. You are not going to get a
:08:19. > :08:22.cultural change that way. Are you sure about that? It seems to me that
:08:23. > :08:29.your successors come at the head of the World Anti-Doping Authority and
:08:30. > :08:33.Sebastian Coe, the head of the IAAF have made noises which suggests that
:08:34. > :08:37.on balance, they would prefer to see Russia and Russian athletes at the
:08:38. > :08:43.Olympic Games than not? Is that the right message to send? I think it
:08:44. > :08:47.is, you want to encourage the conduct change. What about
:08:48. > :08:51.deterrence? That is the reputational hit that Russia has taken so far. It
:08:52. > :08:55.is going to be a much bigger hit if they can't compete in the next
:08:56. > :09:04.Olympics. It will be. Isn't that the point? May be -- maybe sports
:09:05. > :09:11.administrators at high level are not prepared to take the tough
:09:12. > :09:17.decisions. Are prepared. I was as surprised when I saw what was
:09:18. > :09:28.written on our report in day one and day A2. Within a week, the IAAF had
:09:29. > :09:36.thrown them out and two weeks later, WADA declared the anti- doping
:09:37. > :09:42.agency in Russian noncompliance which means they are out. Until they
:09:43. > :09:45.are invited back in and to signal that will be sent if they are
:09:46. > :09:49.invited back in before the Olympics so that Russian runners can once
:09:50. > :09:56.again be racing around that track at Rio, what kind of the signal will
:09:57. > :10:00.that send? That in the end it's OK? It's not OK. What you are looking
:10:01. > :10:05.for in the Olympics is to try to get everybody there, providing they are
:10:06. > :10:13.following the rules. But that is the big proviso, is it not? In all
:10:14. > :10:17.honesty, given reporting, investigation, years of experience,
:10:18. > :10:21.do you think that the culture which produced the systemic doping in
:10:22. > :10:28.Russia that you exposed has fundamentally changed? No, I don't
:10:29. > :10:32.think it has. That is going to take time. They have a whole bunch of
:10:33. > :10:37.people in the system, like cycling in the 90s and 2000, who were
:10:38. > :10:42.there, who were embedded and did all of this stuff on the old Soviet
:10:43. > :10:47.circuit and you can extract what you want from their. -- there. I don't
:10:48. > :10:59.think you are going to get a cultural change but you can produce
:11:00. > :11:04.conduct change and if I were in that place, I would say, we don't want
:11:05. > :11:06.them in endless week, the international Federation, are
:11:07. > :11:11.satisfied that everybody will be on even field of play and they are
:11:12. > :11:13.clean. Isn't one of the biggest problems in the sense of inviting
:11:14. > :11:18.you to reflect on what you've learned from 20- 30 years in elite
:11:19. > :11:21.level sports administration, is one of the biggest problems that
:11:22. > :11:26.athletes themselves are in denial? They don't tell the truth. They lie.
:11:27. > :11:31.I'm not even telling about athletes who cheat themselves but those who
:11:32. > :11:39.know others are cheating but don't front up about it. There's so much
:11:40. > :11:43.and lying within athletics from athletes. There is. And certainly
:11:44. > :11:48.the ones who are doping, they can look you in the eye as Marion Jones
:11:49. > :11:51.and Ben Johnson did to me and say, no I am not on drugs. When you
:11:52. > :11:56.looked at them and 88 and were trained to manage the situation and
:11:57. > :11:59.asked Ben Johnson if he did it...? I said, I am not going to go in front
:12:00. > :12:05.of my colleagues and try to defend you if I know that you are guilty
:12:06. > :12:08.unless you tell me you are. So I took him down the hall, into the
:12:09. > :12:15.bathroom, close the door and asked him if he was on anything. --
:12:16. > :12:20.closed. Barefaced lying to the guy who's tried to help him. So I said,
:12:21. > :12:25.looks, I will do what I can but in those days, if they found
:12:26. > :12:31.something, you are pretty sure it's fair, then they are far more likely
:12:32. > :12:37.to miss it and find it. Whatever it was, he had had a very steep hill to
:12:38. > :12:42.climb. One of the WADA panel members I saw quoted recently, Richard
:12:43. > :12:45.McLaren, said the tradition in sport is silence. Always deny. Most
:12:46. > :12:51.athletes in our investigation refused to call out other athletes.
:12:52. > :12:57.Why is that? The context here was Russia. Russian athletes in Russia.
:12:58. > :13:04.The system is you don't rat out anyone. Or your sport career is
:13:05. > :13:10.finished and you may be in physical danger. ARD did not run that
:13:11. > :13:17.programme when whistleblowers were outside Russia. That is how serious
:13:18. > :13:20.that is. That raises the question, do you believe whistleblowers are
:13:21. > :13:26.being properly looked after in this murky world of international sport
:13:27. > :13:28.cheats? They are not an international federations have been
:13:29. > :13:37.the worst in dealing with the whistleblowers. George Jackie from
:13:38. > :13:45.Germany, when he informed on Lance Armstrong, the president of the UCI
:13:46. > :13:49.Kolbe the informer scumbags. Not the perpetrator -- called the. As you
:13:50. > :13:51.said, in Russia it is potentially life-threatening to claim that
:13:52. > :13:58.illegal things are happening inside the system. Right. So why, when one
:13:59. > :14:01.looks at what you have just said, the fact that sports governing
:14:02. > :14:04.bodies are not strongly enough defending these whistleblowers and
:14:05. > :14:08.protecting them, why would anybody take the risk? That is the issue and
:14:09. > :14:13.it will be hard to give evidence unless we can make
:14:14. > :14:20.Everything you were telling me in this interview suggests that there
:14:21. > :14:25.is still a profound problem at the top of global sports administration
:14:26. > :14:30.and those at the very top of still not taking it very seriously the
:14:31. > :14:37.pillar that is my conclusion and it is inescapable. Which you include
:14:38. > :14:45.Sebastian Coe in their? No, I would think he's a wake-up call of huge
:14:46. > :14:50.importance. He gets it. He may not have got it before but he gets it
:14:51. > :14:55.now. Here is what puzzles me. You wrote a report looking at the
:14:56. > :15:01.failings of the IAAF that governs athletics and pointed to issues that
:15:02. > :15:09.went to the very top of the organisation. You also looked at
:15:10. > :15:14.those at the run the lower, including Sebastian Coe, saying that
:15:15. > :15:19.he had failed to take seriously the evidence of doping and tests that
:15:20. > :15:25.suggest that serious systemic problems existed inside the sport.
:15:26. > :15:32.You wrote that report and then, the question was who do should take
:15:33. > :15:36.over? Sebastian Coe wanted the job and you could very powerfully said
:15:37. > :15:44.that with your record you were the last man to be Mr clean up. Why
:15:45. > :15:50.didn't you? I believe strongly that if you don't yourself into the whole
:15:51. > :15:54.you are the best person to get out. We did it when I did the salt lake
:15:55. > :16:04.city investigation. We sold our problem on our own. And the power is
:16:05. > :16:11.so concentrated in the International Federation in the resident that the
:16:12. > :16:16.board is all but irrelevant. You said to me that Sebastian Coe was
:16:17. > :16:23.one of the guys involved in digging the hollow, what on earth in all of
:16:24. > :16:28.that qualifies him to clean it up? I really don't think he was and if he
:16:29. > :16:36.was doing it on the board it was with his left hand. In 2003 up until
:16:37. > :16:46.2013 he was 99% focused on London and getting to deliver London. Even
:16:47. > :16:52.after all of the revelations and the Sunday Times leaked thousands of
:16:53. > :16:58.suspicious but tests over a decade indicating at least 800 test had
:16:59. > :17:06.flagged up suspicious findings, including from some of the world's
:17:07. > :17:10.most famous award-winning athlete. Sebastian Coe's response was that
:17:11. > :17:15.they declared war on my sport. I take pretty great exception to that.
:17:16. > :17:19.We cannot be betrayed as a sport in any way dragging our heels. He was
:17:20. > :17:23.circling the wagons around a defensive bunker and he was not
:17:24. > :17:27.saying that this was disastrous and we had to change everything to root
:17:28. > :17:31.out the cheats. I had to tell you that our commission found that that
:17:32. > :17:37.report did not have any substance. That was the opinion of a couple of
:17:38. > :17:41.scientists who thought that they should have done something and in
:17:42. > :17:47.fact, nobody in international sport did because you could not get past
:17:48. > :17:51.the Court of Arbitration for Sport. OK, so you can challenge the
:17:52. > :17:53.findings, but your immediate gut reaction to those who are blowing
:17:54. > :17:57.the whistle and those who are raising questions have declared war
:17:58. > :18:01.on my sport, is that a sensible way for the current president of the
:18:02. > :18:07.IAAF to behave. He was electro candidate at that point. You say
:18:08. > :18:14.things in a campaign that you probably don't do when you get into
:18:15. > :18:21.a seat of power. He should not carry that mindset with him today. He is
:18:22. > :18:25.not in a bunker. He is out there tried to put Humpty Dumpty back
:18:26. > :18:29.together again. But sometimes he has to be abandoned and you have to make
:18:30. > :18:40.a fresh start. Let us give them a chants. -- chance. This is what they
:18:41. > :18:43.say about the IAAF. If anything encapsulates the existential crisis
:18:44. > :18:48.engulfing the athletic Federation Right now, it is this, it is that
:18:49. > :18:52.Sebastian Coe is seen as the best man for the job. I think they are
:18:53. > :18:59.very lucky to have somebody like him. Look around the IAAF Council
:19:00. > :19:05.and ask yourself, is there anybody here they could do a better job than
:19:06. > :19:11.this. Is there a possibility that you are in the end, for all of your
:19:12. > :19:13.efforts to root out drugs in sport, you are an insider and your natural
:19:14. > :19:19.inclination is to support the guys who worked their way through the
:19:20. > :19:24.global sports bodies and have served their time, paid their dues will be
:19:25. > :19:28.nice to you and you have been nice to them. It is all to club like an
:19:29. > :19:34.insider like. If I'm an insider I'm an outsider it insider. One of the
:19:35. > :19:37.reasons I'm not the president is because I say what I think about
:19:38. > :19:44.these things. And what I said about Sebastian, it was a lynch mob and I
:19:45. > :19:50.can remember very clearly in that press conference and I came to talk
:19:51. > :19:56.about our findings. And there was a gaggle of folks there were therefore
:19:57. > :20:01.a lynching and I don't do lynchings. What about tennis because there is a
:20:02. > :20:07.sport which entirely depends upon the glamour, the star power, the
:20:08. > :20:10.reputation of its key individual players but they don't really want
:20:11. > :20:15.to know that some of these people... I think I have a long way
:20:16. > :20:23.to go and one of the Golden girls, Maria Sharapova, and when I heard
:20:24. > :20:28.this and saw the press conference, who on earth is advising her? She
:20:29. > :20:33.claims she was using a drug that had not been listed as an illegal
:20:34. > :20:37.substance for many years and she just did not realise, forgot to
:20:38. > :20:42.address the issue that had been listed as a banned substance. I am
:20:43. > :20:45.sorry but if you're running a $30 million a year so enterprise which
:20:46. > :20:48.depends on you to be on the courts swinging a tennis racket, you down
:20:49. > :20:56.well paid attention to these changes. Should that defence in this
:20:57. > :21:01.new deterrent filled world of yours come with a lifetime ban in your
:21:02. > :21:05.view? For a first offence, no. First offence, new drug, you would never
:21:06. > :21:10.get away with that. But certainly she is facing a sanction and the
:21:11. > :21:14.hearing is probably ongoing as we speak. Let us end with this thought
:21:15. > :21:20.about whether sport has been fundamentally spoilt. The USA
:21:21. > :21:23.spectator and me as well, is there any point when you look at elite
:21:24. > :21:30.level sport in really taking it at face value, the nature of those
:21:31. > :21:37.performances? Yes and no. For instance I don't watch cycling any
:21:38. > :21:45.more because I just don't care. To -- too Rocky. I hope they are
:21:46. > :21:53.cleaning up a bit but I'm from Missouri... Show me. Even in
:21:54. > :21:56.athletics, I don't how you watch but if I watch 100 metre race, I watch
:21:57. > :22:01.the race and the excitement, and then I look up at the time and it is
:22:02. > :22:04.not one of those things where you look at the clock and when the clock
:22:05. > :22:10.stops you try to go down and figure out who got there first. It can
:22:11. > :22:16.still be exciting but what I don't like is the uncertainty and when
:22:17. > :22:20.that disappears. If you get 1% advantage, in a ten second 100
:22:21. > :22:24.metre, that is one major. There is no split on the face of the planet
:22:25. > :22:29.that would not be happy to win by one metre. Is the public loses
:22:30. > :22:32.interest in the fact that it is all fixed and everybody is doing it.
:22:33. > :22:37.They going to stop watching. Sponsors will figure out that their
:22:38. > :22:40.audience is unavailable, broadcasters will realise the same
:22:41. > :22:45.thing and they will stop covering of. How close to that the doomsday
:22:46. > :22:51.in international elite sport are we? Welfare are a number of tipping
:22:52. > :23:00.point. I thought Ben Johnson was going to be more than it was. That
:23:01. > :23:05.was 26 years ago. The scandal led to the formation of a World Anti-Doping
:23:06. > :23:12.Agency was another one. The thing with the Russians, and everybody
:23:13. > :23:16.knew it but you could not prove it. I think that is one of the reasons
:23:17. > :23:19.that everybody is ready to act very quickly. But that is to me that if
:23:20. > :23:24.the Russians are backing Rio, there is reasons to be bravely suspicious
:23:25. > :23:29.and disappointed. And this is where I say that the IAAF have to say that
:23:30. > :23:35.we are morally satisfied that everybody on the field of play has
:23:36. > :23:42.not been doping. If they can't say that they do have a problem. Dick
:23:43. > :23:47.Pound, we have to end there but thank you for being on HARDtalk.
:23:48. > :23:48.Thank