News

Pound to be inducted to Canadian Sports Hall of Fame

Published: 16 April 2011

 

(PHOTO COURTESY OF IOC)

 

MONTREAL -- Dick Pound, a former Olympic swimmer, International Olympic Committee vice-president and past-chancellor at McGill University, is among six new inductees named to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in Calgary.

 

Pound, a tax expert and partner at the Montreal-based law firm of Stikeman Elliott, had a stellar career as an athlete and an impressive career as an administrator in sport.

 

"I believe that sport is a fundamental contributor to any great society, and in Canada we are second to none," said Pound, who was inducted to the McGill Sports Hall of Fame last fall. He has previously been inducted to the Canadian Aquatics Hall of Fame (1972), the Canadian Amateur Athletic Hall of Fame, the Quebec Swimming Federation Hall of Fame (1993) and the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame (2001).

 

Born Richard William Duncan Pound in St. Catharines, Ont., on March 22, 1942, he was raised in Ocean Falls, B.C. and later went on to be a star swimmer with the McGill University Redmen from 1958 to 1962. He established school records in every freestyle event, winning three Canadian intercollegiate gold medals in both his sophomore and senior years.

 

He made the Dean's Honour List and earned a commerce degree from McGill in 1962, followed by a bachelor's degree from Sir George Williams University in 1963 and a law degree from McGill in 1967.

 

The 6-foot-2, 163-pound sprinter became the first Canadian to swim the 100-yard freestyle in under 50 seconds and the 100-metre free in under 56 seconds. He owned every freestyle record in Canada up to 110 yards. A Canadian butterfly champion in 1961 and a four-time national freestyle champion (1958, 1960, 1961, 1962), he competed for Canada at the 1959 Pan American Games in Chicago and the 1960 Rome Olympics, where he was a finalist in two events, finishing fourth in the 4x400-metre medley relay and sixth in the 100m freestyle. He also competed in the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth, Australia, capturing one gold medal, two silvers and a bronze.

 

Not only was he Canada's top freestyle sprinter in that era, he was also an outstanding intercollegiate squash racquets player, ranking nationally in both singles and doubles.

 

Pound became president of the Canadian Olympic Association in 1977, was invested as a member of the IOC in 1978, went on to serve a lengthy term as vice-president of the IOC and was the inaugural chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency. In 2005, he was named among Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world for his relentless efforts to rid sport of performance-enhancing drugs.

 

He also served for more than a decade as chair of the McGill Athletics Board, the University's Board of Governors and chancellor of McGill.

 

In 2001, Pound received the Lester B. Pearson award, presented by Canadian Intercollegiate Sport, to a distinguished Canadian citizen and former university athlete whose personal achievements exemplify the ideals and purposes of amateur sport.

 

He will officially go into the new pantheon, a s a builder, in November along with former NHL hockey defenceman Ray Bourque; retired B.C. Lions' kicker Lui Passaglia; soccer pioneer Andrea Neil, who was capped 132 times with Canadian national team; Peter Reid, a winner of 10 Ironman triathlon events including three world championships; and Lauren Woolstencroft, a Paralympic skier.

 

SOURCE:

Earl Zukerman

McGill Athletics & Recreation

514-398-7012

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