Salt Lake City Olympics Scandal

The alleged bribery and corruption surrounding the Salt Lake City Olympics committee is reprehensible (Jan. 12). If true, the entire senior management team should not only do the morally decent thing by resigning, as some have, but should also be banned by the IOC and any other U.S. sports authority from participating at any level in any organized sport for life, whether as an administrator, player or spectator. These people should have no way to further corrupt sports at any level. Perhaps for the duration of the 2002 Olympics these people could, if not in jail, be required to perform community service with children or the elderly and be kept well away from the event they have tarnished.

That said, I would make a heartfelt plea that the 2002 Winter Olympics not be removed from the Salt Lake City area. The residents are but halfway through enduring four years of major disruptions to their freeway system, with significant ramp and lane closures. To deny these people the pot at the end of the rainbow, i.e. the thrill and revenues from hosting the Olympics, would seem to be an unfair punishment on the innocent.

Let’s just make sure the selfish and self-centered perpetrators of these alleged “errors of judgment” are the ones who pay a severe and lifelong penalty.

ROY J. GOOD

Rancho Palos Verdes