Salt Lake Organizing committee head Mitt Romney is getting more financial assistance from the IOC for the 2002 Winter Games. The IOC has agreed to pay for moving UCLA’s drug testing laboratory to Utah for the 2002 Games, securing professional accreditation for the transplanted lab and underwriting ongoing research into detection of the banned endurance-boosting hormone EPO. The IOC executive board is letting SLOC keep some money previously destined for the IOC as royalties on sponsor-donated goods and services. The IOC will forgo this revenue if SLOC invests more money in decorations that enhance the look of the Games. IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch wanted assurances that television shots of athletes in action show Olympic rings and Salt Lake 2002 emblems in the background. The extra revenue should also help SLOC dress up dowtown high-rises with large-scale Olympic imagery.
Although the IOC is pleased that Athens organizers have made up for years of delays, IOC executive Joques Rogge warns there can be no complacency leading to the 2004 Olympics. Rogge said Greece needed to spend more money to ensure its Olympic team was of the highest standard. Seventy per cent of the Olympic venues are in place. Road, rail and tram line construction projects are under way to ease transport in Athens during the Games and work on the Olympic Village begins next month. Construction on some venues had been delayed because of archaelogical finds on the sites. Rogge said 12,000 hotel rooms have now been booked in Athens with a further 3,000 available on cruise ships anchored in the city’s harbor during the Games, but 3,000 more rooms were still needed. Authorities had reacted by relaxing legislation stopping construction in the heart of the city, said Rogge.
A new investigation related to the Salt Lake City scandal and the upcoming trial of two bid leaders will not affect the success of next year’s Winter Games, said IOC vice president Kevan Gosper of Australia. The IOC’s chief ethics investigator Francois Werner, said his probe into the investigation centres on a member of a national Olympic committee who took an undisclosed benefit from Salt Lake’s bid committee. The man is not associated with the U.S. Olympic Committee and the case is unrelated to the SLOC. Werner said he plans to interview his subject, who has been accused of “exactly the same kind of problem we’ve already had with Salt Lake”. Werner said the wrongdoing is serious, although a formal investigation has yet to be opened. The IOC’s ethics commission will examine the case July 12 in Moscow.
Lawyers for Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, the two bid executives charged with conspiracy, fraud and federal travel act violations for bribing IOC officials, are preparing a court motion based on revelations that federal agents withheld thousands of documents in the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. The motion will document the defence’s attempts to obtain specific information in the Olympic bribery case. Attorney Max Wheeler said the government claims they have turned over everything they have. “This McVeigh thing obviously makes you wonder if that is true”, he said. He said there has been “an ongoing problem of paper tracing” in the Olympic case, which like the McVeigh investigation, involves a large volume of documents, numerous interviews and several FBI agents.
U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch will hold a special session of the Judiciary Committee in Salt Lake County to make sure federal and state agencies responsible for security at the 2002 Winter Olympics get along. He wants to make sure there are no turf wars going on among the FBI, Secret Service, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and others. The field hearing is planned for May 31. Utah Olympic Public Safety Command spokesman Robert Flowers said there are no turf wars going on, but he welcomes the opportunity to demonstrate that to the committee.
Athens 2004 bid officials were in New York recently to get the assistance from Greek Americans in volunteering for the 2004 Summer Games. A bid spokesman said they’re also interested in help from Greek-Canadians, as well as Greeks in the U.S., Australia, Germany and other places.
And finally, the World Amateur Golf Council, comprised of the USGA and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, formally applied for golf to be included on the program for the 2008 Sumer Games. Negotiations are still continuing with the PGA. Golf applied unsuccessfully to be included in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics and withdrew its petition for the 2004 Athens Games when the IOC decided against adding any new sports for 2004. The IOC will being discussing the sports’ applications in September or October. If approved, golf would be open to all professionals. Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros have led a campaign for golf to be included in the Olympics.
