Saving Himself May Prove Difficult for Former Lifeguard Coles

Turnabout being fair play and all that, do you suppose the International Olympic Committee has a file on its in-house talent scout, Australian IOC member--for now, anyway--Phil “Dossiers R Us” Coles?

Subject: Coles, Phillip Walter.

Nationality: Australian.

Born: July 20, 1931.

Likes: Ski vacations to Utah, provided all expenses are underwritten by the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee. . . . American professional football--had great seats at the Super Bowl a few years back, also courtesy SLOC. . . . Ostentatious Greek jewelry, preferably gold with diamond inlays and etchings of the mythological flying horse Pegasus.

Hobbies: Unofficial IOC gossip columnist for the Sydney Olympic bid committee interoffice newsletter. . . . Unofficial guardian angel for his good friends within “the Olympic Family” in Salt Lake City and Atlanta.

Dislikes: Newspaper, radio and television reporters. . . . Ongoing IOC investigations.

Coles, a former national lifeguard champion and member of the Australian Olympic canoeing team, has been dog paddling in some very hot water for a while now. Already on the IOC’s version of probation for his blatant freeloading during Salt Lake City’s successful bid to host the 2002 Winter Games, Coles seems to be dinged every week by new allegations claiming he:

* Accepted $6,500 worth of jewelry from a Greek businessman during Athens’ failed campaign to host the 1996 Summer Games.

* Compiled scouting reports on IOC members and sent them back to Sydney during the campaign for the 2000 Summer Games--supposedly top-secret dossiers that somehow found their way to the Salt Lake City bid committee.

* Aided the Atlanta bid committee while an Australian city, Melbourne, was competing against Atlanta for the right to host the 1996 Olympics.

Included among documents released by the Atlanta ’96 bid committee last week was a letter written by Atlanta executive board member Horace Sibley thanking Coles for taking “time from your busy schedule to visit us at the Atlanta House. On behalf of Billy Payne, Charlie Battle and the rest of our Atlanta group, thanks again for your time and your advice.”

This latest charge, coupled with earlier claims by Coles’ former wife that Coles made 44 phone calls to the Atlanta committee during the bidding for the ’96 Games, has branded Coles a turncoat in his home country.

“It’s just a pity that so many of us spent so much time pursuing the Games for 1996 for Melbourne,” said Ron Walker, a member of the Melbourne bid team, “and we find one of our own members chose to help the other side.”

Public pressure for Coles to resign from the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) has intensified, with everyone from Australia Sports Minister Jackie Kelly to NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol calling for Coles’ ouster.

Monday, Coles met with IOC Vice President Kevan Gosper amid speculation that Gosper would be arriving wielding an ax. According to media reports, Gosper, also Australian, was going to ask Coles to resign from SOCOG and/or the IOC.

But Coles emerged from the meeting still standing, if wobbling.

“It would be quite unusual for me to come out here, with an investigation having been set up, to tell Phil Coles what he should do and what he shouldn’t do,” Gosper told reporters in Sydney. “I certainly didn’t arrive in Sydney with a message from Juan Antonio Samaranch advising Phil Coles to resign from either SOCOG or the IOC.”

Without publicly calling for Coles to step down, Gosper did concede that Coles might be guilty of the “possibility of a continuous pattern of misjudgment.”

Coles, meanwhile, granted an interview on Australian pay TV and decried the “hurtful vilification of me and those around me. . . . You lay awake at night thinking, ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ All I wanted to do was bring the Games back to Australia. We finally got the Games here, and I sometimes wonder if it was all worth it.”

Coles, who maintains he has been targeted by embittered Melbourne ’96 organizers seeking to take him down, added, “I don’t think I’d ever go and try to bid to win the Games again. It’s a sad reflection, but living through this experience and these accusations and controversies and jealousies, I don’t think it’s worth it.”

The IOC is continuing to investigate Coles and has requested he respond to the latest charges at its next meeting June 13. The session could result in Coles’ expulsion from the IOC, although Coles insists he will be vindicated instead.

“My position has not changed,” Coles said. “I have to appear before the [IOC]. . . . The meeting will take place and I’ll present my case and I’ll be cleared.”

SPONSOR HANGS IN . . .

With many Olympic corporate sponsors sitting tight, warily waiting for the next scandal to drop, General Motors announced Tuesday that it was stepping up its Olympic financial commitment--to the athletes, not the Games themselves.

General Motors revealed plans to donate 100 cars to “U.S. Olympic hopefuls” to assist their training for the 2000 Games.

“This initiative on our part is a vote of confidence and an underscoring of our belief in what the Olympics are really about--which are the athletes and the competitions themselves,” said Phil Guarascio, General Motors vice president in charge of advertising and corporate marketing.

The company has also assembled an athletes advisory panel including such former Olympians as Carl Lewis and Dorothy Hamill.

“We hear so much about this thing with Salt Lake City,” Lewis said, “and I think one of the problems is that athletes are not as involved in the process--at any level. . . .

“Athletes should be involved in the selection of the cities, they should be involved where the money goes, they should be involved at every level. And I think the companies want the money and the support to go to the athletes as well.

“That may be one of the good things to come out of this scandal--that the athletes get more support.”