L.A. Attorney Elected IOC Member : Anita DeFrantz Was Leading Opponent of U.S.-Led 1980 Boycott

Attorney Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles, a leading opponent of the United States-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, was among four new members elected to the International Olympic Committee Friday.

Also chosen on the closing day of the IOC’s 91st session were Kim Un Yong of South Korea, Charalambos Nikolaou of Greece and Jean-Claude Ganga of the Congo.

DeFrantz, Kim and Nikolaou filled vacancies left by the deaths of IOC members from their countries. Ganga was chosen as a new representative for Africa.

The election of DeFrantz, 34, marked the first time in the history of the IOC that a black person was chosen from a country that is not predominantly black. She is a Philadelphia native who twice competed in the Olympics and won a bronze medal in rowing at Montreal in 1976.

She is also the first member from Los Angeles since John Jewett Garland. (The first L.A. IOC member was William May Garland, the businessman who was responsible for bringing the 1932 Olympics to Los Angeles; his son John Jewett Garland succeeded him on the IOC.)

By contrast with many IOC members, DeFrantz has no fortune. She has served on the executive board of the United States Olympic Committee and in her current job is a staff member of the L.A. Olympic Foundation.

What made her particularly attractive to the IOC was her opposition to President Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the ’80 Games. She argued that American athletes should be permitted to go to Moscow.

For her struggle against the boycott, even though unsuccessful, she was awarded the Bronze Medal of the Olympic Order by IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

DeFrantz’s name was one of five submitted for the IOC post by the other American member, Robert Helmick, president of the USOC. Among others on the list were Peter Ueberroth, who ran the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and is now baseball commissioner, and Donna de Varona, an Olympic swimming champion who is now a sports commentator for ABC-TV.

In other action, the IOC elected Prince Alexander de Merode of Belgium as third vice president of its executive board and named Kevan Gosper of Australia and Vitaly Smirnov of the Soviet Union to seats on the board.