Some people just don't know when to quit. Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), would be one of them. Pound is well known for his pit-bull tenacity and his penchant for lobbing verbal cluster bombs, and he is rarely one to disappoint.

So it should come as a surprise to no-one that Pound, who the International Olympic Committee ethics commission recently reprimanded for his comments about Lance Armstrong's alleged use of the banned substance EPO in the 1999 Tour de France, refuses to back down from those statements. In response to news of the reprimand, Pound told the Associated Press: "Anything I do or say in relation to doping is done in my capacity with WADA. I'm responsible to WADA, not the IOC." As head of WADA, however, Pound is a member of the IOC and is subject to its rules.

The ruling came after Armstrong filed a complaint with the IOC ethics panel following Pound's comments in the wake of allegations published in L'Equipe in August 2005. The L'Equipe story alleged that while LNDD, France's anti-doping lab, was testing samples from the 1999 Tour, 15 samples were positive for EPO use. Six of those samples were said to belong to Armstrong.

Supposedly, LNDD did the testing as part of its ongoing research into anti-doping testing techniques. Only Armstrong was named in the L'Equipe article. The identities of the other riders whose samples were said to be positive have not been released.

Pound, however, is unmoved by the censure. As Reuters reports:  "These are documents. This is an accredited laboratory that found EPO in (Armstrong's) urine from 1999 and it's been matched with forms you signed so if the analysis is right and the forms aren't forgeries you may have something to explain," said Pound, a Montreal lawyer and Canadian IOC member.

    "That's as far as I've gone. He (Armstrong) has done nothing about the L'Equipe article and has done nothing except complain about me for some unknown reason. I've said those are the facts. The UCI knows 15 samples showed EPO and six of them have been linked with (Armstrong); there are another nine that the UCI knows who they are that they aren't doing anything about. We think this is something that ought to be looked at by the UCI."

Pound certainly hasn't stopped dogging Armstrong - and his attacks on Lance will likely continue as long as he's in a position to press his case.

According to Reuters, Pound also said: "It's there for the UCI to deal with. They may conclude it is not sufficient or they might conclude it was eight years ago and we're not going to do anything about."

He added: "I don't know what they are going to do. The UCI has shown no interest in doing anything about it."

Like many Poundian pontifications, this last statement is not true. In May 2006, Emile Vrijman, the independent investigator hired by the UCI to look into the L'Equipe's allegations, cleared Armstrong of any wrong-doing related to the 1999 Tour. Vrijman's report, however, accused anti-doping officials, including Pound, of violating their own rules.

Armstrong told the Associated Press that he appreciated some of Pound's efforts to clean up sports, but he also felt that the IOC has given Pound a strong message. "It's been a long process," Armstrong said. "Considering the IOC rarely does something like this, it's a significant gesture and I appreciate it. I hope he learns his lesson."

I hate to tell you this, Lance, but don't count on it. As Pound told Reuters: "If Lance thinks this is going to make me go away he is sadly mistaken."

Floyd Landis and others should take note. Pound latches onto ideas and issues like a pit-bull latches onto its victims. And he lets go about as easily. Just because a case may be settled, don't expect that Pound won't keep hammering away at it.

“[Lance] keeps alive this whole thing that he should be trying to fade away, that a French accredited laboratory found that he had six positive samples for EPO in 1999,” Pound told the New York Times. “Maybe he thinks if he huffs and he puffs, all of this will go away, but it won’t.”

Perhaps it's time for Mr. Pound to quit huffing and puffing instead.