Samaranch Requests a Shift in IOC Power : Meeting: He wants national committees, international federations to have more control.

At the opening of the 99th International Olympic Committee session Monday, president Juan Antonio Samaranch implored members to give broader powers to the sports’ international federations and to the National Olympic Committees.

In return, he said that he will seek assistance from the federations and the national committees in paring the Olympics, particularly the Summer Games, the size of which is becoming unmanageable.

Samaranch was among the forces behind a controversial plan proposed by the executive board last week that requires IOC members to share their power to select Olympic host cities. If the full membership adopts it this week, five representatives from the international federations and five from the national committees will join the 92-member IOC in voting for sites.

That is in line with Samaranch’s strategy to make the federations and national committees more responsible to the Olympic movement. Given the authority earlier this year to select two at-large members, Samaranch chose two federation presidents, Primo Nebiolo from track and field and Olaf Poulsen from speedskating and figure skating.

“Let me say here very clearly: The problems we face are very serious,” Samaranch said in his speech at the Palau de la Musica Catalona.

“The institutional structure of the International Olympic Committee will have to develop . . . in order to fully harness the vital forces of the Olympic movement, those which come from the international federations and from the national Olympic committees.”

Among the most pressing problems for the IOC are the expanding Summer Games, which Samaranch said might include nearly 200 nations by 1996. That is about 30 more than will compete here, the final number depending on the IOC’s announcement today of whether Yugoslavia and two of its former republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, will be allowed to send teams.

Samaranch is concerned that unless the federations and national committees work with the IOC to eliminate events, and perhaps even entire sports, future host cities will not be able to afford to house athletes and officials. There are 3,000 more residents in the athletes’ village here than originally projected.

On other fronts, Samaranch was more optimistic.

He called the suspension of sprinter Ben Johnson at in the 1988 Summer Games at Seoul “a turning point in our struggle” against performance-enhancing drugs and said that “the pitfalls of excessive commercialization” have been avoided.

Samaranch did not refer specifically to a recently published book, “The Lords of the Rings,” which is critical of the IOC in both of those areas, but he said: “We must and indeed do take a respectful view of the wide variety of opinions which are expressed concerning us. But we do not accept and we shall always defend ourselves against the envy and hypocrisy which prompt some people to try to destroy what they themselves were unable to create.”

Although IOC member Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles said last week that she believed that the selection of a second U.S. member might be postponed until September, sources close to the situation say that the IOC will vote Thursday.

The U.S. Olympic Committee recommended four candidates: USOC President Bill Hybl of Colorado Springs, Colo.; USOC vice president Michael Lenard of Los Angeles, International Baseball Assn. President Bob Smith of Greenville, Ill., and the secretary of swimming’s international federation, Ross Wales of Cincinnati.

In addition, the sources said that the IOC is considering the United States’ former ambassador to the United Nations, Andrew Young of Atlanta; the president of Atlanta’s Olympic organizing committee, Billy Payne, and Harvey Schiller of Colorado Springs, USOC executive director. They also said that some members have expressed interest in the former president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, Peter Ueberroth.