Latest Olympic Gestures Won’t Fly

Wednesday’s Olympic dog-and-pony show was hosted by the U.S. Olympic Committee and held in Washington, all the easier for the buck to be passed up Capitol Hill and placed on President Clinton’s desk.

While conceding that USOC oversight over the Salt Lake City bid campaign was “abysmal,” USOC President Bill Hybl announced he had sent a letter to Clinton asking the White House to ride to the rescue, round up the guys in the black hats (i.e., the International Olympic Committee) and throw them in the hoosegow.

Rather dramatically, Hybl said he was calling on the White House to put the IOC under the umbrella of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes the bribing of foreign government officials a crime.

“In less than 100 days, the Olympic Movement has faced its most serious challenge in the past 100 years,” Hybl said. “This challenge has become a global crisis that demands the most aggressive possible action and a commitment to change. . . .

“To do any less would mean facing a future that might include the loss of the Games and the noble ideals that they profess.”

One problem: The IOC in itself is not a foreign state and its members do not represent foreign governments. The IOC is “a sporting club, a social club,” according to one of its executive board members, Kevan Gosper of Australia. Placing the IOC under the auspices of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act would first require amending the law.

And then, the door would be opened to accommodate who else? The Shriners? Riviera Country Club? The International Table Tennis Federation?

Another problem: Supposing the law were amended, how would the U.S. government set about dragging IOC members overseas to be tried in U.S. courts? More than one existing international treaty would have to be amended--or broken--as well.

A third problem: Clinton is not the man for the job. Congress would have to enact such legislation, not the president.

So Hybl’s ploy, quality sound bite though it is, amounts to little more than empty grandstanding. That seems to be going around the USOC these days. What, in the end, did the touted USOC-commissioned George Mitchell investigation produce beyond a report of the obvious?

Fifty-three pages and two press briefings to address the premise that IOC members accept lavish gifts from Olympic bid cities and this practice should be stopped?

But Hybl is right when he describes the crisis as global.

As in omnipresent.

As in out of control.

Wednesday, a fax from the Sion, Switzerland, 2006 bid committee arrived at The Times office. Sion, along with Turin and Helsinki and a handful of other cities, is campaigning to host the 2006 Winter Olympics--the first campaign to be conducted under the new anti-corruption restrictions proposed by the IOC executive board in January.

Sion and the others are prohibited from flying in and wooing IOC members--ah, those were the days--so Sion has adopted a fresh and imaginative new bid strategy:

Flying in and wooing the media.

“As you are probably aware, Sion is currently a candidate to host the Olympic Winter Games in 2006,” the fax begins. “The International Olympic Committee will determine the host city on 19th June.

“We are pleased to invite you to come and see our candidature for yourself. We will present our candidature file, show you the competition venues and offer you the opportunity of meeting those in charge of the project and provide a flavour of the cultural life of the Valais.”

The fax goes on to note that “many media will be coming to Switzerland for the IOC’s Extraordinary Session to be held on 17th and 18th March in Lausanne”--convenient, that--and lists four proposed time windows before and after the IOC meeting for two-day media junkets to Sion.

“If you are unable to come on any of the above dates,” the fax continues, “we would be pleased to welcome you in Sion at any time between now and the beginning of June.”

(Again, that IOC election to decide the 2006 Winter Olympics host city: June 19.)

Finally, the fax proposes: “The Sion 2006 candidature committee will bear your travel costs together with those for your accommodation and meals.”

It will be interesting to see how archrival Turin counters this most hospitable offer.

Free swatches of the shroud for all Olympic beat writers?

What was that Mitchell was saying about the “culture of improper gift-giving” within the Olympic movement?

“I take exception to that,” the IOC’s Gosper had the gall to mention to Reuters on Wednesday. “I think it is wrong.

“We do have rules and guidelines in place, we do have protocols in place. The rules relating to bidding have been tightened substantially, year after year, from February 1987.”

Beyond that, Gosper said, the IOC relies on the “good judgment and integrity” of its members.

Which explains the SOS smoke signals now wafting outside the Oval Office windows.