For 21 years, Juan Antonio Samaranch has ruled the International Olympic Committee with an iron fist. In his final days, is it any wonder that his fingerprints are all over the two decisions that will help shape the IOC's future?
On Friday in a ballroom of Moscow's Radisson Slavyanskaya hotel, the IOC's 122 members determined the site of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The five finalists: Beijing, Istanbul, Osaka, Paris and Toronto. Samaranch was said to favor Beijing -- despite China's dubious history concerning human rights -- which is why Olympic observers said Beijing was the favorite, ahead of the safer, more traditional choices of Toronto and Paris. Like former U.S. President Richard Nixon, the 80-year-old Spaniard sees the opening of China as the centerpiece of his legacy.
Samaranch has spent the last year lobbying IOC members to chose Beijing, which was defeated by Sydney by a scant two votes for the 2000 games. Consider it done.
The next order of IOC business is deciding who will succeed Samaranch as IOC president for the next eight years. Again, there are five official candidates: Anita DeFrantz of the United States, Un Yong Kim of South Korea, Richard Pound of Canada, Jacques Rogge of Belguim and Pal Schmit of Hungary.
The vote is by secret ballot, with the candidate receiving the fewest votes eliminated after each round until a majority is achieved.
DeFrantz and Schmit are said to be given little chance, reducing this to a fascinating three-horse race. Pound and Rogge, both 59, are Samaranch lieutenants and represent new-age reformers in an elite, staid organization that has been rocked by the Salt Lake City scandal. Kim, at 70, is more of an old-school, business-as-usual candidate.
Who does Samaranch support? Despite the fact Pound, a tax attorney, has done most of Samaranch's dirty work, such as chairing the World Anti-Doping Agency and negotiating lucrative television contracts, Rogge is said to have Samaranch's backing. An orthopedic surgeon, Rogge speaks five languages and is a former Olympic yachtsman.
With Beijing prevailing, it is unlikely that IOC members would hand Asia both prizes, a serious blow to Kim's chances. Likewise, Pound is at risk if Toronto sneaks in for the 2008 bid. If it comes down to Rogge and Pound, most experts give Rogge the edge. Cynics believe this is because he would prove more malleable than the feisty Pound. Not only does Rogge enjoy the support of Samaranch, a fellow European, but much of the European bloc, which comprises nearly 50 percent of the votes.
Pound -- who has served the Olympic movement since 1978, the longest among the candidates -- is a confident truth-teller, whose bluntness sometimes gets him in trouble. It was Pound who presided over the Salt Lake City probe that eventually saw 10 IOC members leave the organization. That exodus and new rules barring members from traveling to cities bidding for the Olympic Games could work against Pound.
Kim was issued a severe warning in the Salt Lake affair two years ago, but has said he would reinstate the visits.
Rogge is the consummate politician - he is smooth, conciliatory and, most often, neutral. And isn't that, ultimately, what a president is?
Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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