Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Utah latest IOC victim

Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1999 | 11:11 a.m.

THE OFFICIALS AND RESIDENTS of Salt Lake City are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the scandal brought to them by the International Olympic Committee. The sad part of the entire affair is that they got caught up in a scam long recognized as a "necessary evil" by groups attempting to lure the Olympic Games to their cities, states and nations.

Four decades ago, when working with the Amateur Athletic Union, I heard talk of how to treat the IOC and USOC officials. They were oftentimes treated as royalty and many of them came to expect such treatment. Over the years, this was expanded upon by the IOC and the areas bidding for the opportunity to host games became victims. The entire process has become a corrupting dance that leaves those areas not selected poorer but seldom wiser. The losers keep coming back with bigger and better gifts in second, third and fourth attempts to attract the prestigious games.

Salt Lake City promoters fell into this cleverly baited trap after four failing bids for the Winter Olympic Games over the past 25 years. They kept losing as they watched other localities pour gifts and large sums of money into the projects promoted by the IOC. The Utah officials had lost again for the 1998 Winter Games as they watched Nagano selected as Japanese corporations pumped cash into the IOC.

Andrew Jennings in his book "The New Lords of the Rings," written in 1996, recalls the bidding that gave the Winter Games to Nagano. After IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch had tasted the goodies of Japan in 1990, Jennings writes: "The following year the Olympic committee members made their earnest inspection visits. They stayed in Tsutsumi hotels and were welcomed in Nagano by thousands of locals mobilized by schools and employers, and were accompanied by 'hostesses' throughout their trips. The Olympians relaxed in hot springs, were entertained by geishas, and, according to Japanese reporters, were given valuable paintings worth many millions of yen. This is one of Japan's traditional routes for laundering money from business to politicians."

Jennings also relates the long struggle Sweden went through in an attempt to host the Winter Games at Falun. They made six unsuccessful attempts over a 30-year period only to find out that Olympic skiing and skating contests are easier to win than it is to beat IOC politics. In Sweden's last attempt, Falun lost to Frances's Albertville so Samaranch's home base Barcelona would host the Summer Games.

It was Samaranch who told Lars Eggertz of Sweden that "IOC members ought to have rather better gifts than other people." This statement was attributed to him after Eggertz had complained of the high cost of entertaining IOC members. Jennings relates that, "The biggest ordeal for Falun was always going to be the inspection trips by the IOC members. Thirty-seven IOC members, wives, children and hangers-on boarded a chartered plane to Sweden direct from their 1985 convention in East Berlin." This trip, all first-class, was funded by the Swedes and again demonstrated that the IOC members were more interested in the expensive freebies than they were the sport facilities. One member spent more time groping a hostess than he did anything else.

Among the problems of land deals, expensive gifts and cash exchanges, the Salt Lake City people were also embarrassed for meeting demands of free college tuition and even medical care. They should have read Jennings' recollection of what Swedish records show. "Sex wasn't the only commodity the members were after. Businessman David Sibandze from Swaziland busied himself trying to fix a university place for one of his offspring. In the Falun archive is a list of the modest academic achievements of Sibandze's son Cecil Sibuisso."

Jennings goes on to reveal, "Lars Eggertz completed the story for me: 'David Sibandze enquired whether we could arrange a place at a Swedish university, preferably Uppsala, for his son. The matter was eventually arranged and Sibandze was informed. We learnt later that all the bidding cities had been asked the same question.' "

Author Christopher Hill in "Olympic Politics: Athens to Atlanta 1896-1996" is far less critical of the IOC than writer Jennings. Hill does write, "Membership of the IOC does not in itself bring financial rewards, although it has often been alleged that such firms as Adidas could 'deliver' votes in the competition to host the Games. Bidding committees have been said to offer jobs to relations of undecided members, or to hold out such inducements as free surgical operations. The journalist David Miller, commenting on a meeting which was to take place in Lausanne to discuss how the bidding process could be simplified and abuses eliminated, recounts how a minority of members will make money by taking a round-the-world ticket to visit the bidding cities, and then send a bill to each city for a first-class fare from their home bases."

Salt Lake City has become only the latest victim of a corrupt system promoted by phonies who have come to believe they are modern-day royalty and demand what they believe goes with their self-elevated status. The good people and officials of that Utah city aren't the bad guys. They are the victims of the world's most adept scam artists.