Pan Am Games Site Might Shift : 1995 event: Argentine city has made little progress. Mexico City and Toronto are alternatives.

Representatives from Mar del Plata, Argentina, will try in meetings this week at Acapulco, Mexico, to inspire confidence in the resort city’s ability to organize the 1995 Pan American Games.

They face a challenge not only because of their own lack of progress since being awarded the games three years ago. Moving them to another city might be the best hope for the beleaguered president of the Pan American Sports Organization, Mexican publisher Mario Vasquez Rana, to maintain his influence within international sports.

Finding that preparation in Mar del Plata is so far off schedule that there is not even a schedule, PASO’s technical commission concluded in a September report that the organization of the quadrennial, multisport competition is “dangerously behind in all areas of planning, commitment and facility development.”

Although the Games have support from the city and federal governments, the commission reported that the organizing committee in Mar del Plata had no full-time personnel or offices, no business plan and only six of 36 venues required for competition involving athletes from the Americas and the Caribbean.

The Pan American Games’ site has become particularly significant because, in an effort to enhance the importance of regional multisport competitions, the International Olympic Committee is expected to consider a proposal that would require athletes to participate in them in order to qualify for the Olympics.

The proposal is directed at the United States, which has been criticized by Vasquez Rana and others within PASO for not sending its best athletes in many sports to the Pan American Games. If adopted by the IOC, the rule could be applied as soon as the 1996 Summer Olympics at Atlanta, dictating that athletes who want to be eligible there must first compete in the ’95 Pan American Games.

“Obviously, we want the best possible conditions for the Pan American Games, and it’s a concern to us because we haven’t seen any real progress in Mar del Plata,” said Harvey Schiller, executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

“But that would be a concern to us in any case. Our membership has come forward and said that the Pan American Games are important and we want to be involved whether it’s tied to Olympic qualification or not.”

Even before the organizing committee’s problems surfaced, Schiller said that the USOC was anxious about the selection of Mar del Plata because its location in the Southern hemisphere requires that the Games be held during the winter in North America, which is the summer in Argentina. The Games tentatively are scheduled for March 11-26. As a result, Schiller said that U.S. sports that depend on college athletes would have difficulty fielding competitive teams.

That potential conflict will be moot if the Games are moved, which, sources close to PASO said, is a certainty unless Mar del Plata performs a miracle. PASO is expected to decide this week that the organizing committee should be given until March to prove itself. If Mar del Plata fails, PASO probably will decide to move the Games to either Toronto or Mexico City, the sources said.

A vote for Mexico City could provide a vital boost to Vasquez Rana’s flagging fortunes.

At about the same time in March that PASO will determine whether to move the Games, the 16-year stewardship of Vasquez Rana as president of Mexico’s Olympic Committee is expected to be threatened when he runs for reelection. He has used that position to build an international power base, which also includes the presidencies of PASO and the Assn. of National Olympic Committees. Both would probably have to be forfeited if he loses the presidency of the Mexican Olympic Committee.

Vasquez Rana and Mexico’s president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, have been feuding since Mexico won only one medal, a silver in race-walking, during the Summer Olympics at Barcelona.

Salinas ordered a review of the results by appointing a commission, which ultimately blamed the Mexican Olympic Committee. Vasquez Rana disputed the findings at a news conference attended only by reporters from the 71 newspapers that he owns. The questions to Vasquez Rana, one observer said, were not particularly penetrating.

Notes

Also this week at Acapulco, the IOC’s executive board will hear reports from seven of eight candidates bidding to organize the 2000 Summer Olympics. Representatives from Brasilia, Brazil, will not be present because their bid committee has been in a state of flux since the country’s president, Fernando Collor de Mello, recently was removed from office. Sydney, Australia, and Beijing are considered the favorites. The IOC’s vote is scheduled for next September.