Ex-WADA head Dick Pound blasts organization for Nicklas Backstrom silver medal decision
During an August ceremony in his hometown of Gavle, Sweden, Nicklas Backstrom received his silver medal six months after the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Backstrom did not participate in the gold medal game against Canada after he tested positive with an elevated level of pseudoephedrine, a banned substance by the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Two months later, after appeals, the IOC Disciplinary Committee reversed their decision and announced Backstrom would get the medal.
That decision hasn’t sat well with Dick Pound, the former head of WADA from 1999 to 2007, who is upset that the organization allowed for this to happen.
"I would like to voice my disappointment in the Backstrom case, we have an athlete who failed a test and is walking around with a silver medal around his neck," Dick Pound, who was WADA president from 1999-2007, told the agency's Foundation Board Meeting in Montreal. "I think we fumbled the ball.”
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"This is a guy (Backstrom) who tests positive in the Olympic tournament and somehow when the smoke clears he gets an Olympic medal," said Pound. "I don't get it. We appealed and we should not have participated in the settlement.”
Backstrom said at the time he had listed Zyrtec-D as the drug he had taken within the previous seven days before the doping test. It had been known for years that the Washington Capitals center used the medication to treat allergies and he was given assurances by a doctor from the Swedish Olympic Committee that the dosage would not trigger a failed test.
Pound is no stranger in going after the sport of hockey. He’s been an outspoken critic of the NHL’s drug policy, stating back in 2005 that he believed one-third of the league’s players were doping. In response, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said at the time, “Perhaps Mr. Pound would be better served to limit his comments to topics as to which he has knowledge, instead of speculating on matters as to which he has none.” Oh, snap!
Pound had continually pleaded he wants testing to be done independently, not by the NHL and its teams.
“It’s never been robust,” he said, via the National Post. “You don’t know what’s on their list.
“You don’t know how many tests they’re doing. You don’t know who’s doing the analyses, so I have no idea what the results management process is.”
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Sean Leahy is the associate editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Sean_Leahy
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