Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee from 1980 to 2001. He presided over an era where doping was rampant and if you speak to Dick Pound [former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency] about him, it seems he wasn’t particularly committed to confronting the problem. When Ben Johnson was busted after winning gold in 1988 Olympics 100m final, Samaranch was in charge of the organisation and they buried their heads in the sand.
Under his watch, there were many scandals that didn’t actually come to light at the time, such as the systematic doping used by East Germany and the Soviet Union. Test results were allegedly covered up in the LA Olympics. There were rumours flying around and Samaranch ignored them, such as when Carl Lewis spoke about his suspicions in 1987. That ignorance put back the fight against doping for years and years.
The irony is that Samaranch effectively helped to set up WADA. A Spanish journalist had been shadowing him when the Festina scandal erupted in 1998 [a doping issue surrounding the Tour de France]. Samaranch said something along the lines of, “They should just let them take whatever drugs they want to take as long as they’re not bad their health.” But that went against everything the IOC stood for. The health aspect is one issue, but fairness seems to me to be more important. His quote caused a lot of embarrassment, which led to the formation of WADA. But under Samaranch, sport was allowed to become a pharmaceutical arms race.