Turin Power Struggle Leads to Resignation

Only 15 months before the start of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, with organizing committee executives locked in a power struggle with government officials, the president of the organizing committee said Thursday he would quit.

Valentino Castellani said he would submit his resignation from TOROC, as the committee is known, at a board of directors’ meeting Nov. 24. Unclear was whether the resignation would be accepted and, if so, who would succeed him. The Games begin Feb. 10, 2006.

Budget and leadership issues have shadowed Turin’s plans for the 2006 Games. Wednesday, the national government appointed Deputy Sports Minister Mario Pescante supervisor for the Games, a move made amid recent reports of a budget shortfall of more than $200 million.

“A position of responsibility as mine cannot be held without the trust and the support of all the actors that have responsibility in the organization of the Olympic Games,” Castellani said in a statement.

Government officials had insisted that Pescante, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee and a former Italian Olympic Committee president, would not undermine Castellani. Castellani, a former mayor of Turin, apparently believed otherwise. Castellani said Pescante’s authority amounted to “real supervision ... equivalent to a distrust in the work done so far and especially in the ability to continue it.”

Pescante could not be reached for comment.

IOC officials reacted cautiously. Spokeswoman Giselle Davies said, “We thank Mr. Castellani for his work and hope that this leadership issue is resolved as swiftly as possible.”

Recent Games have featured organizing committees headed by one powerful decision-maker. An example: Mitt Romney, head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games committee, is now governor of Massachusetts.

The structure of the Turin committee, however, spread authority and has prompted some Olympic insiders to describe it as “poets, professors and politicians,” and to accuse senior TOROC officials of generating little passion for the Games.

Turin is in Italy’s northwest corner, removed from political, financial and cultural centers such as Rome, Milan and Florence.

Two weeks ago, at a meeting in Rome with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, IOC President Jacques Rogge urged more support for the Games.

The government responded by turning to Pescante.

Despite “numerous attacks to my person and to the professionalism of TOROC,” Castellani said, he had “always tried to look ahead,” rejecting pleas to “be more aggressive, more polemic, more combative” in favor of a “priority to the work that had to be done.”

But, he added, “Now it is enough. There is no need to keep on walking this road.”