Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: A record that’s safe

Friday, Feb. 8, 2002 | 9:14 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

THE 2002 WINTER OLYMPICS opens in Salt Lake City today. It was but three years ago that the International Olympic Committee was wracked with scandal. The IOC members were going home, after visiting proposed Olympic sites, loaded with expensive gifts including cash. Salt Lake City had become the latest victim of a corrupt system protected by IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

The heat was on with Sen. John McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, who called for a hearing and questioned the IOC's tax-exempt status. Also the U.S. Justice Department began its investigation.

Scrambling to cover up a mess in the eyes of the world, the IOC adopted new rules for selecting the 2006 Winter Olympics. It ruled that the corrupting visits to proposed Olympic sites by all of its members cease. In addition the IOC agreed to the establishment of an ethics committee and a committee called "IOC 2000" to recommend other changes. Samaranch and his cronies also dumped six members of the IOC for their corrupt activities that even they couldn't stomach. He said these moves would prove to the world that the IOC could reform itself.

McCain told the press in a release that "The IOC's actions today fall short of the reforms needed to bring transparency and accountability to the organization. Nothing I have witnessed provides any substantive movement in that direction." The old fox had learned too much about the corrupt practices and secret dealing of the IOC to be fooled by a new paint job over a piece of rusty and rotting machinery.

One longtime critic of IOC practices, author Andrew Jennings, told Mike Penner of the Los Angeles Times in 1999 that he didn't think the people in the committee were capable of reform. Jennings, the author of "Dishonored Games: Corruption, Money and Greed at the Olympics" in 1992 and "The New Lords of the Rings" four years later, also saw through the sham. Penner, in a column, quoted Jennings as saying "The IOC have long passed their sell -- by date. How can an organization led by people who steadfastly look us in the eye and lie about the hard evidence they've never had -- why should we let them carry on? Why should we give them any more time? They're only doing this because the feds are in." Jennings went on to say, "We are talking about thieving, stealing, the betrayal of morality ... They haven't the creditability to reform themselves."

I wonder what both McCain and Jennings are saying this week after reading a report from Salt Lake City where the IOC postponed the acceptance of conflict-of-interest rules that had been approved by the IOC's executive board. Little press coverage was given this backward step as the world looks forward to an exciting 2002 Winter Olympics in the city where the scandal first broke.

Alan Abrahamson of the Los Angeles Times, reporting on this week's IOC meeting, quoted member Tay Wilson of New Zealand saying there is no need for the ethics rules. "I'm disappointed that we have so little confidence in ourselves that we need an ethics commission to tell us how to act," Wilson said.

IOC member Sinan Erdem of Turkey, according to Abrahamson, revealed the committee's sentiment. Erdem attacked the banning of the scandal-plagued site visits because "it causes lots of problems." He went on to add, "Just the same as banning the gifts. All the people in this room should be free to accept or reject gifts. But we should not be treated as school children."

Americans are looking forward to some outstanding performances during the coming days. The Olympic Games give us all something special to enjoy. It's a spectacle of accomplishment that draws people all over the world to their television sets.

Athletic records will again be broken by faster, more muscular and accomplished competitors this month in Salt Lake City. The record that won't be broken is the long string of ethical violations that have become a way of life for the IOC members.

In 1999 both Jennings and McCain saw through the reform charade put on by the IOC. They were so right.

archive