Dick Pound's 400,000-page archive to go digital

By James Christie

The Globe and Mail

History identifies Richard Pound as the feisty Canadian who went to bat for clean sport at the International Olympic Committee; as the executive who saved the IOC from going broke by developing marketing strategies for TV rights and the five-ring Olympic logo; the lawyer who risked unpopularity by investigating the corrupt voting practices of fellow IOC members in the Lake Placid Olympic voting scandal.

But when it came to sorting out 400,000 pages of documents in his archive, the Montreal lawyer and former Canadian Olympic swimmer mixed his national sentiment with the historic skills and library skills of the University of Texas at Austin.

Montreal's McGill University and Texas-Austin will process and digitize the massive Richard W. Pound Olympic Collection. Pound's Olympic materials comprise 350 boxes -- a 100-metre plunge into Olympic history that ranges from the drama of the Ben Johnson doping scandal to backroom negotiations for TV rights. There are 700 printed titles, a significant body of regalia, more than 850 pin sets, medals, statuettes, coin sets and 12 Olympic torches.

Pound is the author of several books, including Five Rings over Korea, a saga of the political negotiations leading to the success of the 1988 summer games in Seoul; Inside the Olympics and Inside Dope. He was chancellor of McGill University from 1999-2009 and is a partner of the Montreal law firm Stikeman Elliot, specializing in tax law.