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Pound: Sydney bid was 'dubious'
Posted: Monday May 17, 1999 05:07 PM
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Sydney's tactics to secure the 2000 Olympics were more dubious than those used by bribe-tainted Salt Lake City, according to International Olympic Committee vice-president Dick Pound. Pound, a key figure in the investigation into Salt Lake's bid which removed 10 IOC members, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper that Sydney had escaped the same level of scrutiny as the host of the 2002 Winter Games. Pound said Sydney bid organizers kept secret the cool weather conditions there during September, failed to disclose problems with the city's transport system and made "awkward" last-minute cash grants to African officials on the eve of the vote. "What is suspect is the choice of the host city," Pound told the paper. "Sydney is not without its own controversy there. Frankly, given the results, arguably far more so than Salt Lake." Sydney edged Beijing by two votes in the 1993 count, while Pound said "Salt Lake was going to win anyway." "There were a lot of things kept secret from the voters with Sydney's bid," Pound said. "One is the temperature. The other is the road system." Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates rejected the claims. "The IOC had an inspection committee which came out here and looked at everything," Coates said. "If anything is a surprise it appears the IOC investigative committee hasn't done their job properly. All the weather reports and so on were on display."
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