Mr. Pound's Boss

According to WADA

WADA is composed of a Foundation Board, an Executive Committee, and several Working Committees.

The 36-member Foundation Board is WADA’s supreme decision making body. It is composed equally of representatives from the Olympic Movement and governments, as is the 12-person Executive Committee

WADA Foundation Board delegates the actual management and running of the Agency to the Executive Committee, including the performance of activities and the administration of assets.

The WADA Foundation incorporation statute is located here. From this we learn that,

• The Foundation Board (FB) is self-organized, and appoints its own chair and vice-chair.
• The FB must meet at least once a year, meetings called by the chair.
• The chair must call a meeting on written request of five members.
• At a meeting, members may ask questions, but it is not clear if they may make proposals.
• The FB appoints the executive committee.
• Decisions are made by absolute majority of those present, with chair deciding any ties.
• Appointments to the executive commitee require 2/3 vote of those present.
  
• The FB supervises the committee or persons entrusted with running the Foundation.
• The FB chair and vice-chair automatically hold those posts on the executive board.
  

The Foundation Board consists of these 36 people:

CHAIRMAN Mr Richard W. POUND, Q.C, IOC Member , Canada
VICE CHAIRMAN Mr Brian MIKKELSEN, Minister of Sports, Denmark

Dr Robin MITCHELL, IOC Member, Fiji
Prof. Arne LJUNGQVIST, IOC Member, Sweden
Mr Willi KALTSCHMITT LUJAN, Guatemala
Mr Patrick CHAMUNDA, Zambia
Mr Richard YOUNG, USA
Sir Craig REEDIE, United Kingdom
Prof. Eduardo Henrique DE ROSE, Brazil
Dr Tamas AJANI, Hungary
Mr Mustapha LARFAOUI, Algeria
Mr Francesco RICCI BITTI, Italy
Mr Gian Franco KASPER, Switzerland
Mr Anders BESSEBERG, Norway
Dr Alexander POPOV, Russian Federation
Ms Charmaine CROOKS, Canada
Ms Rania Amr ELWANI, Egypt
Ms Beckie SCOTT, Canada
Sir Phil CRAVEN, United Kingdom
Dr Hans Bernhard BEUS, Germany
Ms Tanja SAARELA, Finland
Mr Vyacheslav FETISOV, Russian Federation
Mr Terry DAVIS, France
Hon Bala Bawa KA’OJE, Nigeria
H.E. Mr Makhenkesi Arnold STOFILE, South Africa
Mr Yahia GUIDOUM, Algeria
Mr Michael D. CHONG, Canada
Hon Anthony WOOD, Barbados
Mr Claudio MORRESI, Argentina
Mr Scott BURNS, USA
Dr. Kamal AL-HADIDI, Jordan
Mr Hiroshi HASE, Japan
Mr Duan SHIJIE, China
Ms Datuk Azalina Othman SAID, Malaysia
Prof. David F. GERRARD, New Zealand
Senator the Honorable Rod KEMP, Australia

In order to fire Mr. Pound, it appears necessary to get five members to write a letter, then have a majority vote of those who attend. A more careful reading might suggest that the members could not raise the issue as a question, but this would make it impossible for the board to supervise those running the Foundation. S imilarly, since such a decision would affect the executive board membership, perhaps the 2/3 vote rule could be invoked. However, that rule is tied to appointments, not terminations. I'd argue it only affects selection of the replacement.

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Maybe it was the muesli and the beer

I'd forgotten about this.

During the tour, CycleOps (the power tap people behind Allen Lim) did a whole series of podcasts on Simply Stu, a website they run for Triathletes. One of the running topics (and jokes) was diet and the amount of meusli the riders are fed, and how the recipe was a secret of one of the Seignouirs, revealed in one of the later episodes. The main ingredient of meusli is rolled oats, which is not far off from Free Floyd's "diet can elevate test results", and Tom Fine's, "Hey maybe it was the beer."

Now, some obvious questions are:

• Everybody eats meusli, how come it was only Floyd?
• Didn't the study for the CIR take this into account?

I think a difference might be that Floyd moved from training in the US, near home, to Europe in the run up. Doing so changed his dietary consumption sources completely. Maybe this resulted in some C12/C13 balance alterations. If such a change did occur, I kind of doubt that the studies done in validating the CIR for doping tests took it into account. More likely, it was run on a bunch of athletes in their home environment eating a stable diet.

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