Two stories last week raise serious questions about the coming Vancouver Olympics and basic freedoms

Dick Pound, former WADA boss and leading IOC reformer, told Play the Game about the changes brought in by the IOC in the wake of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal.

The next Olympics will set a new standard in defining the role between sport and governments says the chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), which hosts the 2012 Games in London.

COMMENT:In her second report from Canada, journalist Laura Robinson comments on the ongoing heated debate over gender inequality in sport.

The 2012 Olympics in London is unlikely to meet the International Olympic Committee’s aims of being a lever for engaging with children, inspiring young athletes and fostering social cohesion, according to most research carried out to date.

The first Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Singapore next year is set to cost at least 25 times more than another sporting event in Finland this summer with a similar amount of competitors.

The IOC charter states that “only sports that adopt and implement the anti-doping code, can be included or remain in the programme.” According to the minutes from a WADA executive board meeting in May 2008, IOC was aware that several countries and IFs were not compliant with the WADA anti-doping code when they competed in Beijing.

A report published this week by One World Trust, a British independent think tank, ranks the IOC as the least transparent among 30 organisations, scoring just 32 % of 100 %.