IOC president Jacques Rogge visited the U.S. Olympic Committee in Colorado Springs, Colo., the first such visit since before the Salt Lake City scandal.
Of the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Games Rogge said, “I’m not concerned at all. All the reports I have received indicate that the organization will be excellent. The only uncertainty in Winter Games is always the weather, which no one controls. Barring the meteorology, I’m quite sure they will be superb Games”.
He added, “It’s a state of mind. Internationally, there’s absolutely no discussion anymore about the scandal. We’ll never forget it, and we should not forget about it, but we’ve taken corrective action by disciplining members, by an ethics commission, by changing the rules. That is the past. Now we have to move on in the future”.
Rogge plans to stay in the athletes’ village during the Salt Lake Games. He said, “I know that I will get a bed. I’m going to see the bed hopefully tomorrow. I’m not oversized, so any bed will do”. Rogge’s next stop is Salt Lake City.
The Salt Lake Games could be the last Games in the U.S. for a long time and the U.S. chances of hosting the 2012 Summer Games could be slim if Rogge is correct in thinking that IOC members increasingly will want to spread the Games beyond North American and Europe.
He said, “that is what’s going to prevail more and more in the future, and that has definitely prevailed with the choice of Beijing”.
Asked whether he would like to have the Games staged in Africa during his presidency, which under current rules will last no longer than 12 years, Rogge said, “very much. I think this is one of the unfulfilled wishes of the Olympic movement, to have the Games in Africa one day and in Latin America”.
Among topics discussed was the fact that IOC visits to bid cities could be reinstated if IOC members vote to do so. Rogge said, “I’m going to implement what the majority of my colleagues decide on the matter”. Rogge has initiated a review of all the post-scandal reforms, which he hopes to have completed by the end of 2002. If visits are reinstated, he said the IOC, rather than the candidate cities, would organize and pay for them.
Rogge also said he hoped Canadian IOC member Dick Pound, his rival for the IOC presidency, will agree to come back. “If that is the case, I’m happy”, said Rogge.
