Olympic Vote: a Swiss Miss

In its third try to win the Winter Olympic Games, the Swiss city of Sion, capital of the canton of Valais, was considered the overwhelming favorite to be the site of the 2006 Games. It was a rude shock for Switzerland when the International Olympic Committee voted 59 to 36 last Saturday to award the Games to Turin, Italy.

Alas, the 5,000 Swiss gathered for an expected celebration in Sion, on the Rhone River about 50 miles east of Geneva, reacted badly, jeering and booing the decision. And some lout defaced a statue in the garden of the Olympic museum in Lausanne by painting the letters “m-a-f-i-a” within the five Olympic rings.

The Swiss had some reason to be upset, although of course no justification for the vandalism. By most accounts, one cause--and perhaps a major one--of the apparent switch in support from Sion to Turin, just across the Alps from Switzerland, was a backlash against Marc Hodler, the Swiss Olympic official who blew the whistle last December on alleged corruption involving the choice of Salt Lake City for the 2002 Games. Hodler also was linked with the Sion proposal, which involved nearby resorts such as Zermatt and Saas Fe.

Hodler said he had no regrets about reporting the lavish gift-giving by Salt Lake officials to IOC members. Subsequent investigations led to the resignation and expulsion of a handful of IOC members. But Hodler said it was unfair for members to carry their feelings about him into the 2006 site vote. A Swiss delegation official said that Sion wasn’t a loser but rather a victim in the voting.

All that is water down the Rhone now. Turin, a historic Baroque city of 1.3 million, the home of Fiat, should prove to be a splendid Winter Games site. Winning on its first try, Turin is the first site in Italy since Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956. Sion deserves a shot the next time the Games might be held in the Alps, but that is likely to be some time off. For now, the best the Swiss can hope is that their ski team is a big medal winner at Turin.