February 28, 2008 (Lausanne, Switzerland) – Montreal’s Dick Pound, former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), has more competition for the presidency of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reports AP. There are now four candidates vying for the job which will be decided on April 3.

The other candidates include Mino Auletta, an Italian lawyer; Gunnar Werner, Sweden’s former honorary secretary of the International Amateur Swimming Federation (FINA); and Robert Briner, a Swiss international lawyer based in Geneva. Pound is also a senior member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which makes the nominations for the CAS presidency.

The presidency of the CAS has been vacant since January 2007 when Keba Mbaye died in office. Mbaye, a Senegalese judge, had presided over the court since its creation by the IOC in 1984.

The international CAS is the highest court of appeal in the world of sports, able to overrule decisions of national sporting organizations and anti-doping agencies. The CAS president chooses which of the nearly 300 arbitrators from 87 countries will judge the 200 or so cases heard annually by the court. One high profile case to be heard soon before the CAS soon is Floyd Landis’ appeal of his conviction by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) for doping with artificial testosterone during the 2006 Tour de France. The CAS has reserved five days to hear the Landis appeal beginning on March 19.

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