Keep Graft Out of the Olympics

The International Olympic Committee has moved with commendable speed to investigate allegations of bribery in the selection of Salt Lake City as the site of the 2002 Winter Games. The IOC’s candor in the matter is re-freshing, but better still would be a searching look at its own organization and ethics rules.

The IOC made the right decision in affirming Monday that the games will stay in Utah. To move them would be impossible at this point and would subject the Salt Lake City committee to undeserved punishment.

The fuss began Friday when Marc Hodler of Switzerland, a senior IOC executive board member, said that Salt Lake City had been “blackmailed” by four “agents,” including one unidentified IOC board member, during its bid for the Games. Hodler said the city was pressured to grant scholarships from a $400,000 aid fund to 13 people, including six relatives of IOC members. One of the “agents” attempted to win favors from bidders by claiming that no city had won the Games in the past 15 years without his help.

Officials insisted that Salt Lake City won the bid on its own merits, and there is no reason to doubt this. But the charges raise serious questions about the cumbersome operation of the 115-member IOC at a time when hosting the Games means hundreds of millions of dollars in business and worldwide prestige. In fact, Hodler said he had evidence of vote-buying in advance of other Games, including the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. But IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said no official investigation would be launched in those cases unless specific evidence is presented.

Olympics insiders know, however, that various forms of payola have been commonplace for years. And members of the IOC have access to large numbers of Olympics tickets to distribute to favored people or, potentially, to cash in for themselves. This is all part of a disturbing trend toward too much money and excessive professionalism in the Olympics movement. Consider the rowdies among U.S. professional hockey players who trashed their hotel rooms at Nagano, Japan, last February.

Samaranch and fellow IOC officials must move aggressively to establish a site-selection system more immune to payoff pressures. And they should take the sort of action against any guilty parties in the Salt Lake City case that will say to the world that no abuse of the Olympic movement will be tolerated.