Dick Pound, the International Olympic Committee’s most famous member, explained

If you’re even mildly active on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed Dick Pound emerge as a trending topic at least once or twice. You might be surprised to learn Pound is a heavily influential figure in international sports and not whatever imagery your mind conjured while in the gutter.

Richard “Dick” Pound is a veteran member of the International Olympic Committee, the organization that plans and executes the winter and summer Olympics, and the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency. These two powerful agencies shape sporting news, and Pound is often interviewed whenever they make key decisions.

That, and the internet gets a kick out of his name.

The IOC announced it is postponing the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, originally scheduled to begin July 24, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Pound shared the news with USA Today as part of an exclusive interview, and though the committee has not decided on a new start date for the next Olympics, they are leaning toward sometime in 2021.

Once featured in Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” Pound got his start as a member of the Canadian National Swim Team and represented Canada in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. He later served as a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee after retiring from professional swimming and was elected to the IOC in 1978. He is currently the IOC’s longest serving active member.

Pound led the transformation of the Olympics from the edge of financial insolvency back in the 1970s — he said they were “down to a couple hundred thousand Swiss francs” — to the powerhouse it is today. He also played a major role in the corruption investigation into the Salt Lake City bid to the 2002 Winter Games, which involved the committee bribing Olympic officials using cash and scholarships.

Pound is a fervent advocate for widespread drug testing of athletes. He founded the World Anti-Doping Agency, which investigated and levied against Russia a four-year ban from international sports for doping. Pound even criticized the WADA publicly, saying the IOC had “[fumbled] the ball in 2016” on not doling out a harsher punishment ahead of the Rio Olympics.

Pound has made several controversial remarks in the past, but the most offensive might be when he called Native Americans “savages” when asked about the IOC affiliating with China and its politics ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics. He was nearly forced to resign from the IOC due to these comments:

We must not forget that 400 years ago, Canada was a land of savages, with scarcely 10,000 inhabitants of European descent, while in China, we’re talking about a 5,000-year-old civilization.