Track and field’s appointed authority on calling out the IAAF’s BS seemed to deliver a striking blow to Sebastian Coe’s claim of ignorance regarding years of doping-related corruption, but you wouldn’t know it by asking the man himself. 

While the details of Dick Pound’s independent commission report looked damning for Coe re doping cover-ups, Pound was quick to the defense of the embattled IAAF head, which appears to be a massive contradiction to what’s included in the report.    

Watching the former WADA president give his support this morning in Munich to a man who is on an IAAF Council that, per the report, “could not have been unaware,” of doping cover-ups and back-door dealings with Russia, I was completely flabbergasted. He was completely sympathetic to the guy.

 

WADA report & Pounds statement are a contradictory mess.To me,it takes away any confidence that anyone actually wants to clean up athletics.

— Steve Magness (@stevemagness) January 14, 2016

How could Pound sit there and tell us that the IAAF was an “organizational failure,” while simultaneously giving rave reviews about Coe? He can’t think of anyone better to lead? What? How about someone who didn’t sit idly by while Lamine Diack and his henchmen nurtured Russia’s doping factory?

In the face of these damning guilty-by-association details, Coe escaped unscathed as Pound offered up one contradiction after another. 

As he fielded question after question about the current IAAF president’s knowledge of the findings revealed in the IC’s 89-page report, commission chair Pound repeatedly vouched for Coe to remain at his post, all while speaking of the horrors of an IAAF Council that had to have known of egregious behavior going on all around them.

Let me now present the biggest contradiction. On page 47 of the report, point 5 under the header “Part II Findings” reads as follows: “The IAAF Council could not have been unaware of the extent of doping in Athletics and the non-enforcement of applicable anti-doping rules.” 

And then in today’s presser, we get this: “My assessment of Lord Coe is that if he knew there was corruption going on, he would have done something about it,” Pound said.

Well, which is it?

To be clear, Coe was the IAAF vice president beginning in 2007 all the way through his election as president this past August. He was and is on the IAAF Council. So to use the report’s wording, he “could not have been unaware.” 

BUT...

Dicky P doesn’t really blame Coe for being a part of this since he didn’t establish the culture.  

“Well I don’t want to lay the failures of an entire council and the lack of a proper governance process at the feet of one individual. I don’t think that would be fair in the circumstances nor organizationally responsive,” Pound said. 

Hold on here a minute Dick. You just said that if Coe would’ve known, he would’ve done something about it. Now you’re telling me that we shouldn’t put all of the failures on one dude. I thought we weren’t putting any failures on Coe, because like, he didn’t know, right?

“You learn from experience and as they say, experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want,” Pound went on to say. 

But Dick, I thought Coe didn’t have the experience of any of this crap. That’s what you just told me. Now you’re chalking this up to a learning experience? Excuse me while I go vomit. 

Aside from this report failing to tell us much of anything not already known, Pound’s waffling today is incredibly concerning. If Coe truly didn’t know, then make that clear in the report. The commission had to know that a sweeping statement suggesting that the IAAF Council was aware of corruption within the organization would implicate Coe, and that Pound's inconsistencies when cornered on the matter would be very confusing. Pound seemed both aloof and defiant in regards to any potential wrongdoing by Coe, which he surely understands leaves plenty to be desired.

It is a good sign for Coe that not only does he have the support of a man who led an investigation into IAAF corruption, but also that USATF and the Abbott World Marathon Majors are in his corner. Both organizations raved about Coe being the man to lead athletics in this new, hopefully cleaner era after today's press conference.

But what remains is the question about how much, if any, Coe knew about the corruption unveiled today. If he truly did not know of Diack's operations while in office as vice president, it positions him as naive and incompetent. If he did know, well, he should cease to be IAAF president immediately. 

Pound's message sounds like, "this was a massive, inexcusable scandal that everyone had to know about except for one guy, who is excused."

— T.J. Quinn (@TJQuinnESPN) January 14, 2016

I thought we'd know for sure after today. But we don't. Pound didn't help matters. 

What was sure to be a day filled with answers only served to raise more questions about Coe, the man who has promised to deliver track and field from the darkness.