Monday, August 26, 2002
Weathering Olympic crises
By Vicki Michaelis
USA TODAY
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Among crises the Olympics have faced, allegations that a reputed Russian mobster conspired to fix the Salt Lake City Olympic figure skating results rank “way behind” the Munich Games terrorist attack, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge says.
The skating scandal also rates below the Salt Lake City bid scandal and U.S. and Russian boycotts of the Games in the early '80s, Rogge told USA TODAY. He puts it on par with the Ben Johnson doping case in 1988.
And, unless the skating scandal ultimately reveals an “organized, systematic manipulation,” Rogge considers doping a far greater threat to the Olympics.
“Is the performance clean? That is a question that is far more frightening than questioning has the judge been clean,” he says.
His comments came on the eve of Olympic officials' first meetings since alleged Russian mobster Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov was arrested July 31 in Italy.
Next week, on Sept. 5, the Olympic world will mark the 30-year anniversary of its darkest hour, when Palestinian terrorists raided the Olympic Village in Munich. Eleven members of the Israeli delegation died in the attack.
While it might sound like Rogge is downplaying the skating scandal, he does have perspective. He was an athlete at the 1972 Munich Olympics, competing in sailing's Finn class. He was Belgium's team leader eight years later when the United States boycotted the Moscow Summer Olympics.
This week, the latest crisis is sure to be the hum of hallway discourse, but he does not expect it to dominate the agenda.
International skating and Olympic officials have been in a holding pattern, waiting to receive all evidence from U.S. and Italian authorities before beginning the investigations they have promised.
“What I think is important in this case is that the general public understands that we cannot come out with solutions because we do not have enough facts. We have no names, we do not have the full (wiretap) tapes, we do not have the full information,” Rogge says.
Italian authorities have told the IOC they will give them the evidence they've gathered against Tokhtakhounov, Rogge says, although they haven't said when. Rogge also is expecting a report this week from the French Olympic committee, which recently interviewed ice dancer Marina Anissina and French ice sports federation president Didier Gailhaguet.
Anissina, who along with partner Gwendal Peizerat won the Salt Lake ice dancing competition, was contacted by Tokhtakhounov two weeks after the Olympics, according to wiretap transcripts.
Gailhaguet was suspended in April for three years by the International Skating Union for instructing French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne how to vote in the Olympic pairs competition. Gailhaguet told the FBI in February he was contacted two years ago by Tokhtakhounov, who was seeking help in extending his French visa.
Rogge will meet Tuesday with the heads of all the international governing bodies for summer and winter Olympic sports. He's likely to receive further updates on a request he made immediately after the Salt Lake City Games ended — that all federations overseeing judged sports review their judging systems.
“Most federations replied to us and said they were studying that, and many have explained what they were doing. I think there is a general consensus that this is a factor where improvements are possible,” Rogge says.
In the hot seat this week will be not only the head of the skating federation, ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta, but also World Taekwondo Federation president Un Yong Kim. Taekwondo also is facing a possible Olympic results-fixing scandal.
Former WTF vice president Chong Woo Lee was quoted in a Korean magazine in April as saying he intimidated referees at the Sydney Olympic competition into favoring South Korean athletes and made certain they eliminated strong contenders from other countries in early rounds.
The U.S. Olympic Committee asked three weeks ago for an investigation into Lee's allegations. He has since denied making them in the media and in a letter to the IOC, said his quotes were misinterpreted.
Rogge says the IOC ethics commission, already charged with looking into the skating scandal, also will investigate the taekwondo case.
“It's not in the same league, although we're going to investigate as hard as we can and as fast as we can,” Rogge says of the taekwondo case in relation to the skating scandal, citing the lack of hard evidence.
Both the ISU and IOC have been criticized, especially by U.S. officials and the U.S. media, for not moving faster in investigating the skating scandal. The ISU has taken an initial step of requesting that its national federations ask members whether they have information related to the Salt Lake judging scandal or any other misconduct.
“If the Winter Olympics were next year, I would be more concerned,” U.S. IOC member Jim Easton, a vice president on the IOC's executive board, says of the pace of investigation. “We've got three years to correct what's wrong with the system. So I don't think it's as urgent as the press might like it to be.”
Easton adds, however, he will tell the executive board “how important the skating scandal has become” in the USA.
When the figure skating controversy first erupted in Salt Lake City, Rogge pushed for a quick resolution because the media frenzy overshadowed all else at the Games. Within six days of the pairs competition final, where allegations first surfaced that the judging was fixed, Canadian pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were awarded second gold medals.
Rogge says now, in the wake of U.S. authorities indicting Tokhtakhounov for conspiring to fix the Games, “there is not the same urgency as in the Games, where the whole "Skategate' was unjustly putting the performances of the athletes in the shadow. ... We can afford to wait until justice gives us the information.”
Rogge predicts U.S. authorities will have to wait until at least the end of the year to extradite Tokhtakhounov and bring him to trial. He is being held in a Venice jail and is fighting extradition.
Whether in the meantime Olympic goodwill, which is vital to the survival of the Olympics, can weather the trial of public opinion remains to be seen.
Rogge is confident it will.
“It's not good. I hate it. I don't like it. We have to fight against it. But the public knows that this is an exception in sport,” he says.
Sports Stories
Daugherty: Bengals QBs
Frerotte steps to the forefront
Stephens facing surgery
Maturing Favre centers the Packers
Reeves says Vick will play Thursday
NFL notebook
Astros 1, Reds 0
Reds Box, Runs
Boone remains optimistic
Graves garners consideration for his first start
Icon in limestone will greet Reds fans
Owners make some moves toward players
Diamondbacks 7, Cubs 0
Phillies 5, Cardinals 3
Pirates 3, Brewers 2
Braves 7, Dodgers 5
Tough tests face Lakota West girls
Juco guard Williams commits to Bearcats
Weathering Olympic crises
