Finnish member resigns
Haeggman ends 17-year career amid bribery allegations
Posted: Tuesday January 19, 1999 01:07 PM
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Samaranch said last week that nine members were accused of "serious" misconduct and could face expulsion AP |
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- Pirjo Haeggman, a Finnish middle
distance champion, resigned from the International Olympic
Committee on Tuesday rather than risk expulsion for being
implicated in the widening bribery scandal.
Mrs. Haeggman presented her resignation in person to IOC
president Juan Antonio Samaranch at the Olympic movement's
headquarters in Lausanne.
"The IOC President thanks Mrs. Haeggman for all the services
which she gave to the Olympic movement as an athlete and as a
member of the organization," an IOC statement said.
Mrs. Haeggman's ex-husband, Bjarne, reportedly worked briefly
for the Salt Lake bid committee and for 20 months in an Ontario
government job initiated by the Toronto committee bidding for the
1996 Summer Games.
She became only the second IOC member to resign in a scandal.
Robert Helmick stepped down in 1991 as an IOC member and president
of the U.S. Olympic Committee amid allegations of conflict of
interest in contracts with sports associations.
Mrs. Haeggman, 47, was an IOC member since 1981 and was one of
the first two women on the committee.
She was one of 13 IOC members to be caught up in the Salt Lake
City corruption scandal. Tuesday was the deadline for members to
give their response to a letter from Samaranch asking for an
explanation.
Samaranch would ask the IOC executive board to take note o the
move at a meeting this weekend, the IOC statement said.
The IOC is investigating allegations that members or their
relatives received cash payments, scholarships, free medical care,
firearms, lavish gifts and other inducements from Salt Lake
boosters.
Samaranch said last week that nine members were accused of
"serious" misconduct and could face expulsion. He said four
others were cited for lesser violations and could escape with a
warning or no punishment.
The IOC executive board meeting this weekend has the power to
suspend any member found guilty of corruption pending an expulsion
vote by the full IOC assembly at a special session in March.
The executive meeting is also expected to recommend sweeping
changes in bidding procedures, including a ban on visits by IOC
members to potential Olympic host cities. Samaranch also want a
smaller body to decide on host cities rather than the full 115
member IOC.
A middle-distance runner in the 1972, '76 and '80 Olympics, Mrs.
Haeggman was 12-time Finnish champion at 100 and 400 meters.
She was a ceremonial manager at the 1994 European Track and
Field Championships and former vice chairman of the IOC athletes
commission. She was a former vice president of the Finnish Amateur
Athletic Association and a member of the Finnish National Olympic
Committee.
When her name first surfaced last week, Haeggman insisted she
was innocent of all wrongdoing, as did her former husband Bjarne, a
forest technician.
Bjarne Haeggman admitted he had tried to make contacts in North
American forest companies through David Johnson, then vice
president for the Salt Lake bid committee, because they were good
friends. But, he said, there was no connection between his talks
and the bid committee.
But he did concede that some payments for his work were
channeled through the bid committee.
In addition, Paul Henderson, who was head of the Toronto bid,
said his organization paid the rent in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario,
for Mrs. Haeggman and her ex-husband.
Henderson said in an e-mail sent Monday to Toronto news media
that the money was to be repaid to the Toronto committee and was
neither a gift nor an attempt to win the IOC member's vote.
The couple divorced in 1995.
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