WORLD SPORTS SCENE / RANDY HARVEY : Yugoslavia: This Year’s Headache for IOC

The International Olympic Committee’s executive board meetings have been devoted to politics, as usual.

It has become as traditional as the torch relay, the lighting of the flame and positive steroid tests that the IOC will spend the final days before the opening of the Summer Games attempting to solve problems that are beyond its grasp.

In 1972, African nations, as well as black athletes from other countries, threatened to withdraw unless Rhodesian athletes, whose government practiced apartheid, were sent home from Munich, which they were. In 1976, African nations carried out their threat to return home from Montreal before the opening ceremony in anger over a New Zealand rugby team’s tour of South Africa.

After the United States led a boycott in 1980 at Moscow, the Soviets reciprocated in 1984 at Los Angeles. Four years ago, at Seoul, the IOC attempted until the last possible moment to reach an accommodation that would persuade North Korea to participate. “The door is still open,” IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said on the day before the opening ceremony.

Five days before the 1992 Summer Olympics begin, the IOC’s door is still open to Yugoslavia, or what is left of the country after a civil war. But although the Yugoslavs are eager to enter, it appears as if the United Nations believes that the door has been opened too wide.

Holding Yugoslavia responsible for military aggression against one of its former republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UN’s Security Council adopted a resolution in May that included a prohibition on contacts in sports between Yugoslavia and other member nations. In compliance, Spain notified the IOC that Yugoslav athletes would not be permitted to enter the country.

With the support of seven of the world’s most powerful nations, including the United States, the IOC submitted a compromise solution to the UN that would enable Yugoslav athletes to compete here with a neutral flag and anthem under the name Independent Team. That is in contrast to Unified Team, which is the IOC’s title for the collection of 12 former Soviet republics.

But the UN’s sanctions committee, formed last year to deal with problems related to Yugoslavia, decided Friday that the plan was unacceptable. Most members of the committee favored it, but there reportedly were objections from the representatives of Austria, Ecuador and Hungary. As the Associated Press wrote of their reasoning: “If it looks like Yugoslavia, if it walks like Yugoslavia, it must be Yugoslavia.”

Because the sanctions committee requires unanimity, the IOC’s executive board has been discussing alternatives to satisfy both Yugoslavia and the UN.

“Yugoslavia has an impeccable record in the matter of the Olympics, no boycotts and excellent participation,” said the IOC’s director general, Francois Carrard. “It is one of our best National Olympic Committees. We want to do everything we can for their athletes.”

He would not discuss possible solutions, but it has been suggested that the Yugoslavs would be allowed to participate as individuals. They would wear neutral colors and would not be identified as members of any team, not even an Independent Team.

But although that might be acceptable for athletes in individual sports, Carrard said that members of the UN sanctions committee are not comfortable with the Yugoslavs in team sports.

“They want to make sure that teams, whatever form they take, are not perceived as representatives of Yugoslavia,” he said.

That, of course, is impossible. If the scoreboard says “United States vs. Brand X,” does anyone believe that the anonymous team will not be identified on television, in newspapers and by the spectators as Yugoslavia?

Meantime, the Italian women’s basketball team, chosen to replace Yugoslavia if it is unable to send a team, has been placed on alert for the third time within a month.

The Italian women will know by Tuesday whether to pack, Carrard promised. That is the deadline that the IOC has established to resolve the issue, one way or the other.

The debate between the IOC and the UN impacts only athletes from Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics remaining in Yugoslavia.

Two former republics, Croatia and Slovenia, have gained formal recognition by the IOC and will send athletes under their own flags. The IOC will decide Tuesday whether to grant the same status to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But even if the IOC withholds recognition, it has invited that former republic, as well as Macedonia, to participate under neutral flags, although their delegations will be limited to 15 athletes and officials.

Carrard suggested last week that Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia might be identified during the Olympics as Independent Teams A, B and C.

Carrard said he had been criticized for using the name Macedonia because it was “considered offensive to another country.” He was referring to Greece, which has its own region called Macedonia.

“I’m trying to refrain from saying it today,” Carrard said Sunday. “Just say that I called it ‘M’ followed by a few other letters. Now, let’s see what kind of trouble I get into for that.”