«No one is forced to take part in sport. But anyone who does must accept the governing rules» said Richard W. Pound by applying this affirmation to the positive conclusion of the test of Ben Johnson at the Olympics. Different suppositions have been made towards these conclusions, but the International Olympic Committee Medical Commission finished by concluding that Johnson has taken drugs before this competition. This background raised up the whole issue of drug use in sport. Which drugs? How to control its use? What is the definition of doping? These are all important questions that have been raised, and underlining the fact that expert weren't agreeing with them. Therefore, lots of drugs were banned; the sanction for the athletes who consumed those drugs was insignificant. Hence a gap was still available for those who wanted to cheat!

  
Richard W. Pound talks about the North American professional league, specially the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) were he solicited most of the professional league and answered him that they were all satisfied with their own policies, or that no such things exists in their concentration. Finally, after some political pressure in 2004 and even before, some league accepted to higher their standards, but according to Pound, this was a joke! It was really hard for WADA to collect any money. Its main objective is to harmonize an approach to doping, across all sports and in all countries.

  
After Samaranch watching a covering on TV, Pound called in an emergency meeting at the IOC, because the credibility of the IOC was threatened. According to him, the IOC made some progress by allowing appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, created a medical code (which became the IOC Anti-Doping Code), a World Conference on Doping in Sport was then created. Now the World Anti-Doping Agency is private foundation created by the IOC under Swiss law.

  
Nevertheless, it is the government who have final decisions on the future of the IOC, mostly because of financial issues. This power of every single government shouldn't exist, because doping in sport is not a government responsibility, but remain after all a professional sport.

Adopting a resolution by the government at the meeting and enacting a code for WADA was the two main issues left to do. The latter was adopted unanimously, representing the first World Anti-Doping Code and so was the resolution. Nowadays, we have a code that will impose severe sanction when there will be a positive test.

  
After being defeated in the presidential of the IOC, Rogue resigned from all secondary's function, but remains the president of WADA. His job consists to sensitive organisations and the community of the use of drugs upon a competition.

  
Athletes are not satisfied with just doing their best in the competitions they enter, they want to win. No wonder why, some scientist are making test in order to alter the genetic makeup of the muscle cells to deviate any test from being positive. This will take time before this new issue will be resolve, but my view of cheaters will never change.

About the Author's commentary:
Raphael S. Barchichat LL.B.,LL.M.c.l., DESS Tax, LL.M. Taxation
KPMG LLP, International Tax / Corporate Reorganization
KPMG Tower, 600 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, Suite 1500 , Montreal (Qc) H3A 0A3 , Canada, Internet: http://www.KPMG.ca