Among the ten thousand pages released Saturday in the Salt Lake scandal probe, are revelations that Salt Lake’s indicted bid executives were convinced Japan’s bid organizers bought the Nagano Games.
The documents include new allegations that Japan paid $100,000 (U.S.) per vote when Nagano won the 1998 Winter Games over Salt Lake City, which was widely recognized as having the better technical bid.
The released papers consist of bid correspondence, U.S. State Department cables, work papers, news clippings, travel plans and flight itineraries, translations, birthday and other lists of IOC members.
The files, organized by the International Olympic Committee, were released to the Associated Press Saturday by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC).
According to the documents, in March 1991, Tom Welch, one of the two executives indicted, received disturbing news from Patrick Hickey, Ireland’s Olympic head. Hickey quoted Italian Olympic sources that “certain IOC members have entered into a contract with Nagano to vote for them for a fee of $100,000 (U.S.)”.
Welch, who considers himself a scapegoat for the Olympic vote-buying scandal, believes Japan bought the Games in 1991. He accused the Japanese of locking up the IOC vote with a $15 million pledge for an Olympic Museum, then paying a day after the IOC vote.
The seven boxes of documents released by SLOC did not include 360 pages withheld by staff lawyers because of privacy concerns. They contained employment and university applications and grade transcripts for children of IOC members who got U.S. jobs and educations. They also include medical reports of IOC delegates and family members treated at Utah hospitals.
Caroline Shaw, an SLOC spokeswoman said “we wanted to hold nothing back. We believe we are the most open Games in the modern Olympic movement”.
