The Risks Are High as IOC’s Samaranch Plays for Big Stakes

When Juan Antonio Samaranch took office in August 1980 as president of the International Olympic Committee, he enjoyed the favor of the Soviet Union and headed a financially not-very-well-off, all-male IOC.

Four years later, the Soviets are openly hostile to him, and the IOC has four female members and a treasury of some $40 million.

No previous IOC president has handled the job more single-mindedly or more actively. He is the IOC’s first professional president, earning more than $320,000 as compensation for expenses.

The 64-year-old industrialist from Barcelona, Spain, and former Spanish ambassador to Moscow, has already visited almost 140 countries, the United States and the Soviet Union most frequently.

He would like to make the IOC the world’s most highly regarded organization, and hopes a Nobel Peace Prize is in the offing.

Baden-Baden has been the most important stopping point in his travels to date. At the 1981 Olympic Congress, held at the West German resort town, Samaranch liberalized the rules, opening the door to participation by some professional athletes.

Baden-Baden was also where the IOC gambled and chose Seoul, South Korea, as the site of the 1988 Summer Games. Samaranch’s diplomatic skills will be put to the test in the coming years as he attempts to steer the Seoul games away from political storms.

He is taking a risk with the Olympics by accepting such popular athletic events as tennis, and striving for obviously “open Games.” That could make the Olympics more susceptible to manipulation for political purposes.

Of particular interest in the next several weeks will be the announcement of the final Olympic program for 1988 and the conclusion of bidding for American television rights. Samaranch will be watched to see how far he goes along with the content demands of the U.S. television networks.

Samaranch insists the unity of the Olympic movement is greater than ever, despite boycotts in 1980 and 1984. And, while it is true that IOC relations with international associations and national Olympic committees have become closer, dependence on television revenues has also become greater.

But the greatest danger for Olympic unity is Moscow. In recent weeks the Soviets have continually complained of breaches of Olympic rules, raising the specter of a split in world athletics.

One thing, however, is certain: Samaranch has changed the IOC’s stodgy, anachronistic reputation. Whatever the outcome of the risks he is taking now, he will undoubtedly go down in history as the IOC’s greatest innovator to date.