Plans for Southland Olympic Training Facility in Limbo

Already resigned to a late start, a group trying to build a training center near San Diego for the U.S. Olympic Committee had to put its plans on hold Friday for at least another 48 hours.

After a three-hour meeting of the executive committee, USOC President Bill Hybl said it was not likely that a resolution on how to fund the $60-million center would be reached until Sunday.

When they were excused from the meeting an hour before it ended, representatives of the San Diego group seemed optimistic that they would receive the go-ahead for first phase of construction, costing about $44 million, and that it could be completed by next October. Before financial problems delayed construction, the center was to have been completed in January.

But Hybl said at the end of the meeting that some executive board members still had questions about the financing of the second phase of construction that would have to be answered before an agreement could be reached.

One executive board member known to oppose construction of the center is USOC Vice President George Steinbrenner, who objects to spending USOC money for building more summer-sport training facilities when so many already exist in the United States.

The USOC initially approved the San Diego center to give U.S. athletes a state-of-the-art facility where they could train for the 1996 Summer Olympics at Atlanta.