Rogge Is Granted Veto Power

Newly elected International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Thursday he has been granted emergency power authorizing him to make urgent decisions on the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, including the ability to cancel the Games.

But Rogge said he keenly wants the Games to go on. They are due to begin Feb. 8.

“The Olympic Games are in fact an answer to the present violence and should not be a victim of the violence,” he said. He also said, “There is no better symbol of the world uniting around a cause.”

His comments came at the end of a three-day meeting of the IOC’s ruling executive board that saw the Belgian, an orthopedic surgeon who was elected president in July, signal that he has moved swiftly to consolidate authority. He also made it plain that, though he is but two months into the job, he intends in both style and substance to shape the direction of the Olympic movement.

After Rogge was first elected, some observers--including Canadian Dick Pound, one of several candidates Rogge defeated--wondered aloud if he would be his own man or an imitation of Juan Antonio Samaranch, who served atop the IOC for 21 years.

He declared Thursday, having just received the backing of his peers to fully wield the potent power of the presidency, “I am no clone.”

Speaking at a news conference at IOC headquarters, he said the board gave him “full power to take every decision that might be needed for the Salt Lake City Games,” which he foresaw being mainly “operational issues,” including financial and event-scheduling concerns.

He said the need for quick decision-making prompted the board’s move. The executive board is scheduled to meet only twice more in the next five months, in Lausanne in December and again in Salt Lake days before the start of the Games.

“The IOC will be flexible, adaptable, will work toward the success of the games,” Rogge said. “In the current situation, there is absolutely no question whether the Games will go on. Yes, they will go on. It would be stupid and unwise on my behalf to make speculations about possible scenarios in the future.”

Rogge confirmed, however, that he is authorized to cancel the Games but stressed he would not do so without consulting the 15-member Executive Board. The Olympics have been called off before on account of war--in 1916, 1940 and 1944.

“A decision of that nature, of course, is not going to be taken by [one] man alone,” Rogge said.

He also said, “I don’t see how we contribute anything to mankind by canceling the Games.”

Others, including IOC vice president R. Kevan Gosper of Australia, had earlier said that the full IOC membership--about 120 members--would have to vote on canceling the Games.

Asked if he fears a possible boycott of the Salt Lake Games in the event of war, Rogge answered, “The Olympic Games are about inclusion and not exclusion. The Olympic Games are not a competition of nations. They are a competition of athletes.”

In recent years under Samaranch, the IOC had promoted the notion of an Olympic Truce, calling on nations at war to observe a truce during the Games.

Asked about that prospect in light of last week’s attacks, Rogge said the idea of the truce has merit. But he said, “Let’s be realistic,” adding, “A truce is something very difficult to implement,” the more so with terrorists instead of a nation-state.

Meantime, in a stroke that underscored his reputation for public tact but also his deftness at political infighting, Rogge suggested that Pound’s job as IOC marketing chief may no longer unequivocally be Pound’s to have back.

Pound came in third in the presidential campaign. He immediately resigned his longtime assignment as the IOC’s marketing boss and TV rights negotiator; he remains an IOC member and head of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

A week after the election, Pound wrote a letter to sponsors suggesting the election results cast doubt on the IOC’s avowed commitment to reform in the wake of the Salt Lake corruption scandal, which erupted in late 1998 and led to the resignation or expulsion of 10 members. The letter suggested Rogge was too close to Samaranch, who was at the center of the controversy.

Here on Tuesday, Rogge orchestrated the disclosure first to the Executive Board and then to the press that Pound’s law firm had been paid more than $3 million since 1985 for Pound’s IOC-related legal work, a deal initiated by Samaranch. The arrangement was above-board and legal but, Rogge made plain, it is not the sort of thing he intends to do as president.

Then on Thursday, Rogge’s position on the marketing job shifted significantly. Instead of flatly saying the job could still be Pound’s, Rogge said he would decide what to do after an Oct. 3 meeting with Pound in Paris and after meeting throughout October with IOC sponsors.

“There is no hurry,” Rogge said. “The contracts are in place for the sponsorship contracts until 2004. The TV contracts are in place [through] the 2008 Games. So that gives you some time to reflect and take the best possible solution.”

Pound, told of those comments, said by phone from Montreal, “As far as I know, he still wants to meet Oct. 3. If he does, I’m willing to go meet him.”

Rogge also announced Thursday that the IOC is undertaking at his direction a financial and operational audit. He said he asked the IOC ethics commission to study a code of conduct for IOC members, with special attention paid to conflict of interest rules.