Lights Too Bright for Samaranch?

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The president just doesn’t get it, Part Deux:

Sitting in a conference room inside International Olympic Committee headquarters Monday, Juan Antonio Samaranch was taking measure of his 18 years as IOC president for the benefit of a small group of journalists.

“I think I am pleased with myself,” Samaranch said. “What I did, what I did during these 18 years--compare what was the Olympic movement 18 years ago to today. I think the proof was yesterday, when we saw so many, many TV stations and journalists and so on. . . .

“It means the Olympic movement and the international committee is very much important--much more important than I [had] thought in our society today.”

Samaranch was alluding to the media mob scene Sunday night at the Olympic Museum, on hand to cover the news conference addressing the results of the IOC investigation into the Salt Lake City bribery scandal. He made mention of it twice during the course of a 30-minute interview, speaking pridefully of the fact that his exclusive little club could generate such an international media buzz.

Never mind that more than 400 credentialed journalists were there to see if Samaranch might resign in the face of the worst corruption scandal in the 105-year history of the IOC . . . or if the Olympic Games might be stripped from Sydney and Salt Lake City for abuses of the Olympic bid process . . . or how many IOC members would be lined up for expulsion, disgraced for violating the integrity oath they took when they were admitted into the organization.

No, Samaranch was impressed by the camera crews.

Why, there had to be more than at a Monica Lewinsky stakeout!

Yes, to Samaranch’s way of thinking, the IOC has finally, truly hit the big time.

That, luckily, is the minority view within the IOC, which needs this current predicament the same way it needs another Ben Johnson steroids revelation. Speaking of which: This coming weekend, the full membership of the IOC returns to Lausanne for a three-day summit on how to address the runaway problem of doping in sports.

No wonder so many IOC members high-tailed it out of town Monday morning.

They needed a holiday, a little breather between crises.

To the rest of the world, Samaranch’s so-called “Olympic movement” appears embattled to the point of exhaustion. Out of control gift-giving--and taking--in Salt Lake City. Admissions of 11th-hour cash payments to secure the 2000 Summer Games vote for Sydney. The burning of potentially embarrassing records of campaign excesses in Nagano. A war on drugs in sports that looks to be on the verge of total and absolute surrender.

To the rest of the world, the IOC seems in serious need of an organizational overhaul. But to Samaranch? “I think the IOC is run very well,” he professed. “Because the results here are excellent, excellent. We have a lot of properties in Lausanne--our headquarters, our Olympic museum. We have two houses.”

What that has to do with monitoring integrity and flushing out corruption at all levels of the Olympics was left unexplained. But Samaranch did seem pleased that his successor would be inheriting a well-appointed portfolio of prime real-estate holdings.

As for reforming the Olympic bid process, well, Samaranch reasoned, that was taken care of Sunday, when the IOC executive board approved his proposal to centralize the voting for Olympic bid cities and ban visits to those cities by IOC members. The proposal still must be passed by majority vote at the next IOC meeting in mid-March--no slam dunk by any means--but Samaranch foresees no snags.

Even as he asks 100 IOC members to sign away the most (only?) meaningful responsibility they have--voting to award the Games to a bidding city? As Dick Schultz, U.S. Olympic Committee executive director, put it Sunday night, “It’s the only thing they do. I think the question has to be asked--Do you have the votes to do this?”

And the proposed ban on IOC voters traveling to inspect bid cities has already drawn protest from cities campaigning to host the 2006 Winter Games. Monday, the general manager of the Turin 2006 bid committee was at IOC headquarters, complaining to reporters that the IOC is attempting to change the rules in the middle of the game.

“I feel like a skier going downhill and all of sudden, he gets a call--’There’s been a change in the [course],’ ” Giuliano Molineri said.

Turin is waging an intense competition with Sion, Switzerland, for the Games. Until Sunday, Molineri believed his city held a sizable advantage in that it showed particularly well--a nice place to visit, he is certain IOC members would have seen.

Now, if the visits are banned, “Of course we feel penalized,” Molineri said. “If you go to Vienna, you hear about the wonderful cake. You go to the cafe, you taste the cake, you like the cake. Same with Torino, which has so much to show, so much culture. But that is being taken away from us.”

Particularly unfair, Molineri maintains, considering the heavy flow of IOC members in and out of Lausanne, situated less than 200 kilometers from Sion.

“I give you an example,” Molineri said. “At the airport in Geneva, on the motor way to Lausanne, are plenty of Sion 2006 signs. We are not allowed to advertise in Switzerland. . . . [With] the doping assembly coming up and the [IOC] conference in March, it’s ideal for Sion.”

Good idea or not, Samaranch’s bid reform proposal could be headed for some staunch opposition between now and March 18--to say nothing of the legal fight being threatened by several of the six “excluded” IOC members, whose expulsion will have to ratified by a two-thirds IOC body vote.

Big problems for Samaranch?

“I cannot imagine this, I cannot imagine this,” he said. “I think the reaction will be positive.”

Besides, that March 17-18 IOC session will be swarming again with the media hordes--one more chance to lead CNN’s nightly world report.

Turmoil? What turmoil? The IOC is getting killer ratings.

* DON’T BLAME ME: Juan Antonio Samaranch denies personal responsibility for Olympic corruption scandal. Page 7