New IOC Chief Rogge Tours Salt Lake Sites

Proclaiming repeatedly that the worst corruption scandal in Olympic history is over, Jacques Rogge, the recently elected president of the International Olympic Committee, said Tuesday that he has every confidence the Salt Lake Winter Olympics will be “excellent Games.”

Today marks the six-month countdown to the Games, which begin Feb. 8. After a whirlwind tour Tuesday in which he gave a pep talk to Salt Lake Organizing Committee employees, then toured some venues, even bounced on a bed in the athletes’ village like the one he intends to sleep in during the Games, Rogge said he expects a terrific 17-day run in February.

“Lillehammer was excellent,” he said, a reference to the 1994 Winter Games in Norway.”

“In 1998 in Japan, he went on, “Nagano was excellent.” And, he said, “We expect excellent Games in Salt Lake.”

As of today, Salt Lake has made its $1.3-billion budget--seeking now only to close a $46-million gap in contingency funds.

SLOC recently secured a key commitment from federal officials to help underwrite the cost of security.

Most of Salt Lake’s new highway system into and around downtown is in place.

The venues have essentially been built and tested.

Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney observed: “If it’s anybody’s fault now if things don’t go well, it’s ours. We’ve got what we need. Now it’s up to us to organize great Games.”

This was the IOC’s expectation when Salt Lake won the Games, in 1995.

Then, in late 1998, what the IOC calls “the crisis” exploded.

Ultimately, it was revealed that Salt Lake bidders had showered IOC members or their relatives with more than $1 million in cash and gifts in a campaign to win votes.

Ten IOC members resigned or were expelled. In December 1999, the IOC passed a 50-point reform plan.

Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, the two top leaders of the Salt Lake bid, have been indicted in federal court in Utah on charges stemming from the scandal, but a judge last month tossed out four of 15 counts--charges that are key to the government’s case--and it remains unclear if the case will go to trial.

“This is not [the IOC’s] business,” Rogge said of the court case. “This is the business of the Americans.”

Rogge, 59, an orthopedic surgeon from Belgium, was elected IOC president on July 16, three days after the IOC also awarded the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing.

He said shortly after being elected that he wanted to visit the United States--as a recognition of the important role the U.S. plays within the Olympic movement and also because he had never been to Salt Lake.

The scandal was the direct product of a policy that enabled IOC members to visit cities bidding for the Olympics.

That policy was rescinded in the 1999 reforms.

Rogge, an IOC member since 1991, had never been on a bid-city visit.

After a tour Monday of U.S. Olympic Committee headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., Rogge arrived in Salt Lake late that afternoon and, at the airport, immediately addressed the issue of the scandal.

“We had the crisis,” Rogge said. “We have overcome the crisis. We had excellent Sydney Games,” meaning the Summer Olympics last September, which then-President Juan Antonio Samaranch called “the best ever.”

Rogge continued, “But to have excellent Salt Lake City Games is even more important, as the crisis originated around Salt Lake City, and this has to be put behind. We are looking forward ... to excellent Games.”

On Tuesday morning, appearing before hundreds of SLOC employees, Rogge again discussed the scandal.

“We’ve had troubled times,” he said. “Our perspective is, the crisis is over. There is a new management in SLOC. There is a new vision in the IOC.”

From there, it was off to see sites such as the bobsled and luge tracks and the ski jump.

The jump sites are in use year-round--a green plastic landing zone enables jumpers to practice in warm weather--and Rogge spoke for a few minutes with Guillaume Sylvain, 33, a French Olympian and two-time medal winner.

“ Ca va bien ,” Sylvain told Rogge in French, meaning, roughly, everything’s going great.

Later, as Rogge was leaving, Sylvain said quietly in English, “Everything is perfect. The weather is perfect every day. The people--they are American, they’re OK.”

After that came the moment the TV crews had hungered for--Rogge sitting on a bed at what will be the athletes’ village. Rogge had said almost immediately after being elected that he wants to stay in the village--a style departure from Samaranch--and said Tuesday on the bed, “It’s all I need. No more. Absolutely.”

Then came a news conference--and, after a few pleasantries, question after question about the scandal. “The scandal in fact is what you media people make of it,” Rogge said. “From the point of view of the IOC, the crisis is over.”

Asked about Canadian IOC member Dick Pound, who finished third in the presidential election and in a July 24 letter to IOC sponsors had said the results raised “troubling” questions about the IOC’s commitment to reform, Rogge said, “We have reformed.”

Rogge also reiterated a pledge he has made many times in the last month to reassess the 50 reforms after the Salt Lake Games.

And he said that, in yet another departure from Samaranch’s practice, that he will not declare one Games or another the best. Not his way, Rogge said.

When the news conference ended, Rogge was off quickly to the airport, for a flight to the East Coast and a breakfast meeting today with NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol.

As Rogge was leaving, Jim Easton, one of the four U.S. IOC members who had accompanied the new president around Salt Lake, said he saw a silver lining in so much attention being paid--still--to the scandal.

“It’s only because everything else is working well,” Easton said, meaning preparations for the 2002 Winter Games.

“Otherwise you’d be talking about other things. It’s a good sign, I think.”