Aussie Official Defends Position

Beleaguered Australian International Olympic Committee member Phil Coles started his athletic career as a five-time national surf lifesaving champion.

This weekend in Lausanne, Switzerland, he attempted to save someone else--himself.

Coles, 67, was one of at least three implicated IOC members to appear before a six-member IOC investigative commission dealing with new cases as well as pending ones relating to revelations out of Salt Lake City. Richard Pound, head of the investigative commission, expects to report his findings to the IOC executive board next week.

What landed Coles in Lausanne were six sentences in a voluminous report from the independent ethics panel of the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee (SLOC).

The ethics committee report alleged he visited the United States four times--three more than permitted by IOC guidelines, including one trip to the Super Bowl in Miami in 1995, junkets apparently paid for by the SLOC. Coles angrily objected to the lack of documentation and public release of the allegations, threatening legal action against the committee.

Supporting evidence, in the form of 68 pages, was released late last week by the SLOC, detailing five visits to Salt Lake City and one to Miami between 1990 and 1997.

Two of the trips came after Salt Lake City’s successful bid in 1995. One trip--in February 1993--is under debate as to whether it came during the official bidding period. Salt Lake City bid for back-to-back Winter Games--losing its campaign for the ’98 Games to Nagano, Japan, in 1991 and immediately re-upping to compete for the 2002 Games.

Salt Lake City was ratified by the USOC as a candidate city for 2002 Games in November 1991. The IOC deadline for applicant cities was March 1994, according to SLOC information, but Salt Lake City officials essentially never stopped the campaigning process.

While Coles’ case may come down to a battle of semantics, the documentation of his trips to the United States supports the ethics committee’s contention that some IOC members “treated their site visits more like vacations.”

From the substantive to the mundane, Salt Lake City was the consummate host. A small sample of life as an IOC member on the road “inspecting” a bid city:

* Additional day of ski instruction (during Coles’ visit to Deer Valley): $397.

* Two pairs of Levi’s 550 Jeans: $63.73.

* One pair of gloves, one pair of stretch pants from the Sports Den: $126.

The months leading up to the bid victory--on June 16, 1995, in Budapest, Hungary--were especially busy. Documents dated Feb. 25, 1995, show Dave Johnson of the bid committee asked for reimbursement for $1,982.55 for this item--Stein Ericksen Lodge (Dinner, Kaltschmitt & Coles). Guatemalan IOC member Willi Kaltschmitt and his wife often made visits to the U.S. with Coles and his partner.

Itineraries spelled out the preparations in exhaustive detail for one Coles’ holiday visit, in particular, an instruction for one worker: “Jason pre-check condo, meet Modern Display [decorating supplier] for Christmas tree and decoration and presents.”

Everything was seemingly covered in this gilded world, from first-class air fare to housekeepers.

It’s little wonder that Coles and his partner Patricia Rosenbrock sent along a note of gratitude on March 4, 1993, to former SLOC president Tom Welch, writing:

“Just a short note of thanks to you and [then wife] Alma for helping to organise such a great visit for us. It’s having nice friends like you that make this whole process enjoyable--and helps keep our sanity!!!!”

In 1995, bid committee member Johnson received a fax from Coles and Rosenbrock listing the age, height and weight of her children, presumably for ski fittings, with the inscription, “Thank you for taking such good care of us. We are looking forward to seeing you all again.”

Coles did not comment after meeting officials in Lausanne but last week asserted in a statement: “The IOC rules do not apply to visits outside the bid, whether before or after.”

But the glut of information from Salt Lake City was hardly Coles’ salvation.

“With the flow of the extra information, I have no comment,” Australian IOC member Kevan Gosper told The Weekend Australian. Just days earlier, Gosper had issued a strongly worded defense of his fellow IOC member.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.