‘Ottawa’ IOC Needs to Ban Russia from Rio Olympics, ‘send a message’ to cheaters: Dick Pound
The Olympic movement is on the verge of a watershed moment as the International Olympic Committee seeks legal advice on banning all Russian athletes from the Rio Games.
So say former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound and Hayley Wickenheiser, a five-time Olympic medallist and member of the IOC Athletes Commission.
“We’ve got institutionalized, government-organized cheating on a wide scale across a whole range of sports in a country,” Pound told Postmedia on Tuesday.
“You’ve got to send a message that will deter that conduct. One of the ways you can do that is to say, ‘We just don’t want to play with you any more. You’re cheating. You’re destroying the competitions in which you’re participating. It’s not fair to anybody else. So why don’t you take a vacation?’”
Pound’s comments follow an independent investigation led by Richard McLaren, a Canadian law professor at Western University, at the request of WADA.