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Congress should let Samaranch have it
Posted: Friday December 17, 1999 07:59 AM
It becomes difficult now to know whether to be angry, to laugh or simply to cry in sorrow at the mismanagement of the Olympics. Certainly, it is apparent that the greatly trumpeted "reforms" the IOC was going to impose on itself this weekend past are only marginal at best, or, more it seems, just so much vague window dressing. We can only hope that when, today, a reluctant IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch appears in Washington before the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, that the members, led by the chairman, Republican Fred Upton of Michigan, will not let the old con man soft-soap them. I know the pose. I can already see His Excellency -- you must call him "His Excellency" -- sitting before the committee in his uniform, a non-threatening, light-blue suit, white shirt and dark blue tie, with that forced expression of pain and bewilderment whenever anyone dares ask him a harsh question that actually requires facts for an answer. He will, early on, protest that his English is weak, even though, outside his lair in Lausanne, Switzerland, virtually all his business has been conducted in English for decades. Then, when pressed about any discretion, violation, abuse, corruption, venal sin or traffic ticket, he will reply that whereas he might have heard about these matters, nobody presented him with hard evidence, officially, so nothing could be done about it. Never mind that whole books, featuring the most painstaking detail, have been written about the debasement of the so-called Olympic "Movement." The "Movement" polices itself in the following manner: only volunteered confessions are cause for action. Even Inspector Clouseau had a better record, stumbling on offenders. Finally, Samaranch will claim that, heaven forbid, it is not the fault of the lily-pure IOC delegates that scoundrels in would-be Olympic cities all over the world tempted them with bribes. Now, I'm also quite sure that His Excellency will add a new verse to his liturgy, claiming that this is all unnecessary, because the IOC made reforms back in Lausanne. Uh-huh. For example, Samaranch's much ballyhooed ethics committee, made up of distinguished outsiders, appears to have no teeth. It can't initiate action, and even if one of those convenient confessions should come in under the transom, even then, all the ethics yes-men can do is pass on a recommendation to Samaranch and his cronies on the executive committee -- which is precisely where all public Olympic transgressions have gone to a secret death. The House Subcommittee should be able to chew Samaranch up and spit him out. He is the product of the Franco dictatorship, and whereas he learned well there how to be a canny manipulator in a closed society, his political skills desert him completely in any free environment. In public, he is capable only of posturing and delivering fatuous speeches about the "Movement." His affection for the United States ends on the line where we sign the checks that keep Samaranch and his bedfellows living high on the hog. What is so sad is that the Olympics will never matter so much again. Oh, they'll surely be around at the turn of the next century, but their luster is faded, their mystique riddled. As Congressman Upton himself describes them, the Olympics are "a culture of corruption" -- so now our disillusionment exceeds even their disgrace. Where are those World Trade Organization protesters when we really need them? These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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