First IOC Official Resigns

A sprinter who became one of Finland’s most revered sports heroes on Tuesday resigned her post on the International Olympic Committee, the first IOC member toppled by the bribery scandal roiling the Olympic movement.

Pirjo Haggman, 47, one of the first women to become an IOC member and a track champion so beloved in Finland that she has been depicted on a postage stamp, delivered her resignation to IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Amid revelations that her ex-husband had been provided a government forestry job in Canada with the help of the Toronto committee that waged a losing bid for the 1996 Summer Games, Haggman later Tuesday denied wrongdoing. She told reporters, however, that she no longer could function as an IOC member, saying she had been “rash and perhaps naive in my trust in other people.”

Haggman is one of 13 IOC members believed to be under suspicion in the biggest corruption scandal in Olympic history. Sparked by allegations of misconduct in Salt Lake City’s winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games, the scandal has steadily widened to include allegations of misconduct involving bids by several cities for the Games.

The scandal stems from allegations that IOC members or their relatives received cash payments, free medical care, college scholarships, help with real estate deals and other enticements from Salt Lake boosters.

Within recent days, it prompted the resignations of Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Frank Joklik and senior vice president Dave Johnson, as well as Alfredo LaMont, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s senior director of international relations.

Three separate investigations into the Games are ongoing, including one by the U.S. Department of Justice; a grand jury in Salt Lake City has recently issued subpoenas. Law enforcement officials in Salt Lake City familiar with that investigation declined Tuesday to return numerous phone calls.

A fourth investigation, launched by the IOC, is for all intents and purposes finished. Members under suspicion received letters asking them to explain actions taken by themselves or their relatives. The deadline for replies to the letters was Tuesday.

IOC investigators, headed by vice president Dick Pound of Canada, are due to convene this weekend in Lausanne to conclude their inquiry and make further recommendations.

The IOC’s executive board can suspend any members found guilty of serious misconduct. A special general assembly is scheduled for March 17-18 to vote on expulsions.

Haggman was among nine IOC members accused of serious offenses, according to the Associated Press, which quoted a senior IOC official speaking on condition of anonymity. Four others have been cited for minor violations and face warnings or no sanctions, the wire service reported.

“She did the honorable thing,” Anita DeFrantz, an IOC vice president based in Los Angeles, said Tuesday of Haggman. “I think as an Olympian, she understood how important it was to get the movement back on track.”

DeFrantz added in a phone interview: “If there are people who have abused their privilege, I hope they will resign. If they won’t, and if the executive board feels it’s important to suspend them, we will have the session in March to deal with that.”

Toronto’s 1996 bid committee helped Haggman’s ex-husband, Bjarne, get a job with the Ontario Natural Resources Ministry. The committee also paid the Haggmans’ $650 monthly rent for a modest bungalow in Sault Ste. Marie, a western Ontario town just across the St. Mary’s River from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Paul Henderson, who was head of the Toronto bid committee, said in an e-mail written Monday to Toronto newspapers that the Haggmans were to have repaid the rent money. He said it was not an attempt to win Pirjo Haggman’s vote for Toronto and added that Samaranch knew of the job and rent arrangement.

Henderson, active in international sailing circles, did not return a phone call Tuesday to the Australian yacht club where a world sailing championship is taking place.

Bjarne Haggman, who has a master’s degree in forestry, spent 20 months working in Ontario, from January 1989 until September 1990, quitting only days before the IOC vote that awarded the Games to Atlanta. Toronto finished third in the voting, behind Athens.

Trevor Isherwood, at the time an Ontario forestry management official, said Tuesday in a phone interview that Henderson flew to Sault Ste. Marie to personally push for Bjarne Haggman to be hired and later pressured the ministry to keep him even though the Finn “wasn’t being very attentive to the job.”

The work involved making an inventory of trees, Isherwood said. Bjarne Haggman reportedly earned about $36,000 over the 20 months. The Haggmans, who have two children, divorced in 1995.

Pirjo Haggman won 12 national championships in the 100 or 400 meters.

She competed in three Olympics, in 1972, 1976 and 1980. In 1976, she finished fourth in the 400 meters.

In 1981, she became one of the first women appointed to the IOC. In 1994, the Finnish post office issued a stamp depicting her and another runner, Riitta Salin.

At a news conference in Helsinki, Haggman said Tuesday that she was quitting the IOC so that the Finnish capital’s 2006 Winter Games bid would not suffer by association. She also resigned from her marketing position with the bid committee.

“The Olympic Games are in the future the most important happening in sports, and one which unites the whole world,” she said.