IOC Official Comes Under New Scrutiny

A powerful Olympic official from South Korea, reprimanded in the Salt Lake City bribery scandal, has been linked to a newly disclosed equipment deal that has already come under scrutiny by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The official is Kim Un Yong, the highest-ranking International Olympic Committee member implicated in the Salt Lake City bidding scandal. Kim is head of the World Taekwondo Federation, a martial arts association.

Records show that the federation has granted Kim’s son a license to sell uniforms and equipment that must be worn for sanctioned international competition in the sport. The federation entered into the licensing agreement in 1997 with a Long Island company run by Kim’s son, John.

U.S. Olympic Committee officials said they are examining the arrangement, and one competitor said the deal creates an appearance of impropriety.

Through a spokesman, John Kim said his sole interest is to “help set a standard for quality and safety” in taekwondo gear and added that the deal with his father’s federation actually costs him money. He declined to provide details.

The arrangement marks the latest disclosure about deals involving Kim, his children and his connections in the “Olympic family” and international sports.

Kim, 68, a member of the IOC’s ruling executive board, received a “serious” warning from the IOC after its investigation into the awarding of the 2002 Winter Games. Investigators found that the local bid committee had helped subsidize John Kim’s job with a Salt Lake City communications firm and helped arrange piano performances for Kim’s daughter with the Utah Symphony.

On Tuesday, the IOC’s executive board announced that they had no evidence that would warrant more than the reprimand.

Kim Un Yong was en route to South Korea on Wednesday from the IOC meeting in Switzerland and could not be reached for comment.

Dick Pound, the IOC vice president from Canada who led the IOC inquiry into the Salt Lake City bid, said Wednesday that the IOC traditionally does not interfere with an “internal . . . federation matter” of groups like the World Taekwondo Federation. But he did not rule out further inquiry.

The U.S. Olympic Committee, however, is already “aggressively investigating the issue,” spokesman Mike Moran said. The USOC inquiry, he said, started in part because of a Jan. 18 memorandum in which the taekwondo federation decrees that athletes can compete in events it sanctions only if they wear a “WTF-recognized uniform [and] protective equipment.”

The memorandum notes that with the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia, coming up, the WTF has a “strong will” to promote WTF-recognized gear. Taekwondo was part of the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain, but as a demonstration sport; it gets full medal status for the first time in Sydney.

Competitors said they welcome any inquiry.

“First, it violates an athlete’s right to choose what he or she wants to wear to compete, which is performance-enhancing equipment,” said Herb Perez of San Francisco, the middleweight titlist in Barcelona.

“That would be the equivalent of telling [track star] Michael Johnson he’d have to wear Adidas rather than Nike spikes.

“Secondly,” said Perez, a spokesman for Oklahoma-based Century Martial Art Supply, a leading supplier, “when the president of one company is the son of the president of another company, and they are involved in business together, you would call that business relationship suspect. At the very least, it would seem to me that this issue would need to be disclosed to the [IOC] membership.”

Kim has been an IOC member since 1986. He is also president of the General Association of Sports Federations, another influential sports body. He has held a number of important posts in the government of South Korea, including a special presidential envoy in 1990 and ambassador at large in 1996.

He was instrumental in founding the WTF in 1973.

Taekwondo is a form of self-defense similar to karate and kung fu. It has grown wildly popular over the past 20 years and is now taught in more than 100 countries.

The United States Taekwondo Union estimates that about 6 million people practice taekwondo, up from about 2 million in the early 1990s.

Getting outfitted costs more than $200. That includes a uniform ($70-$100), head guard ($45), shoes ($60), chest protector ($50) and guards for the shin and instep ($25) and forearm ($20).

Oklahoma-based Century dominates the U.S. market with $40 million in gross annual sales in martial arts equipment, Perez said. How much of that is attributable to taekwondo alone is uncertain.

Sales figures for IDM Industries were not available. It shares space with the Long Island School of Music and Arts in a two-story white stucco building in Albertson, N.Y., an hour’s drive east of Manhattan. No one from IDM was available Wednesday at its offices.

Calls to IDM and to Kim Un Yong’s lawyers in New York were referred to publicist Bill Schechter, who said that IDM is one of six companies with a worldwide license to make and sell gear carrying the WTF logo.

IDM is the only American company of the group. The others, including Adidas, are in Europe or Asia.

Since his 1990-92 stint with the Keystone Company Inc., the job that drew the attention of Olympic investigators, John Kim, 39, has run his own businesses, Schechter said. One, a “sporting goods operation,” was based in New Jersey and called Exodus Martial Arts, he said.

IDM was awarded the WTF license on Sept. 11, 1997. The licensing letter says IDM is “the company duly recognized” by the WTF to make and sell official gear.

“When it says you are ‘the’ company, it means ‘a’ company,” said Josiah Henson, a WTF vice president in Falls Church, Va., who said he spoke Wednesday morning with the elder Kim about the suggestion of exclusivity. Kim Un Yong said it was inadvertent, Henson said.

“The Koreans translated that the best they could,” Henson said. “It means your company is authorized to do business.”

New York state records, meantime, show that IDM was not incorporated until Sept. 18, a week after the letter.

How did a company not yet incorporated become the only U.S. firm to be licensed?

Schechter said John Kim was doing business as Exodus when he applied, then changed the corporate identity. “He received their . . . guidelines,” the spokesman said. “He produced product samples under those specifications and submitted them for approval. They were accepted. He paid the fee and got the license.”

Asked how much John Kim paid for the license, Schechter declined to answer, saying IDM is privately held.

He also declined to provide details of IDM’s annual sales, saying only that John Kim insists he’s losing $300,000 to $400,000 a year under the deal. “He does it to help set a standard for quality and safety [for taekwondo gear] in this country,” Schechter said.

A related dispute involves IDM uniforms themselves.

An IDM uniform obtained by The Times bears the interlocking five-ring Olympic symbol on the chest, just below the red-and-blue yin-yang symbol, the taeguk, that adorns the South Korean flag. The taeguk, the rings and the words “The World Taekwondo Federation” adorn the right leg of the pants.

In this country, the U.S. Olympic Committee owns the rights to the rings.

Schechter said the uniform was produced in Korea for distribution there, and John Kim had the right to sell the uniform with the rings in Korea through the end of 1998.

“A couple hundred pieces,” he said, made it to the United States, where “some were distributed for test-marketing.”

“It was never intended to be marketed in the United States and indeed it never was,” Schechter said.

Perez said he has seen such IDM uniforms on at least 20 athletes. “Over the past few years, I’ve seen it over and over again,” he said.

Researcher Lisa Meyer in New York contributed to this story.