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Monday, Feb. 8, 1999

Scandal dims Nagano Games anniversary

Festivities softened amid latest allegations of improprieties

Associated Press

   NAGANO, Japan - Nagano marked the first anniversary of the 1998 Winter Olympics on Sunday with dancing, drums and new accusations that its bid committee may have gone too far in wooing votes.
   As drummers, dancers and souvenir hawkers livened up the streets of this city in Japan's central alps, a Japan Olympic Committee official said eight IOC members may have violated restrictions on travel to Nagano before it won the rights to the games.
   Like several other Olympic sites, including Salt Lake City, the host of the 2002 Winter Games, Nagano's conduct has come under question. The Nagano bidders are accused of bestowing International Olympic Committee members with lavish gifts, entertainment or other favors in an effort to win votes.
   The bribery scandal has created a crisis within the IOC, tainting its image and leading to the resignations of several members and the suggested censure of several more.
   Yushiro Yagi, head of a JOC team investigating Nagano's bid, said the Nagano bidding committee "for the most part did not appear to have done anything inappropriate."
   But he said there did appear to have been more visits to Nagano by IOC members than necessary, and said as many as eight IOC members may have violated restrictions on the frequency and duration of trips to this city before it was chosen as host.
   He also said the destruction of documents related to bidding committee spending was "difficult to accept."
   "There are some points which are difficult to accept, particularly the destruction of such documents," he said.
   Nagano officials said the books were disposed of in keeping with normal procedures on how long documents must be preserved.
   Yagi refused to give further details, but said a report on the committee's findings would be submitted to the IOC by Feb. 15. He said further investigation may follow if improprieties are uncovered.
   IOC vice president Pal Schmitt, in Nagano to celebrate the anniversary, said any possible violations regarding excessive travel would be looked into.
   "If it is documented that unnecessarily they were here against our charter ... we will investigate," he said.
   But he added that it was not clear whether the travel violated the charter because the members might have been visiting under the auspices of committees or sports federations other than the IOC itself.
   Meanwhile, across town, school children in bright blue and red costumes held a traditional drum concert near Zenko-ji, a Buddhist temple and Nagano's most famous landmark. Skiing and curling competitions were held in surrounding towns to commemorate the games.
   In the city center, nearly a thousand people turned out for the main celebration Sunday at Olympic Square, a revamped parking lot where most of the medals were awarded during the Nagano Games.
   The event was attended by Princess Sayako and Emperor Akihito's daughter. But embattled IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who had planned to come, was conspicuously absent.
   The Shinano Mainichi, a Nagano newspaper, called the anniversary a "disappointment" in a front-page editorial.
   "The shadow of the bidding scandal that began in Salt Lake City looms large in the Nagano sky," the paper said.
   

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  © 1999 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.