Olympics: Dr Smooth steps in

The new chief wants to clean up the Games' image. MIKE ROWBOTTOM reports.

Those concerned for the moral health of the world's most influential sporting body, the International Olympic Committee, heaved a sigh of relief yesterday at the arrival of the good doctor Jacques Rogge.

The emphatic vote that installed the 59-year-old Belgian orthopaedic surgeon at the head of the IOC as successor to Juan Antonio Samaranch sent a clear message that the Olympic movement is deeply concerned about its image.

Many observers decried Saturday's award of the 2008 Games to Beijing, a decision taken despite China's continuing brutality to all internal dissidents.

The IOC line, espoused by Samaranch, was that not giving the Games to China eight years after their hopes of staging the 2000 Olympics were dashed would have entrenched attitudes now prevalent.

The IOC was also challenging the Chinese to show the world that they could alter their policies.

How realistic that hope is remains to be seen. But, given ambivalence over the Beijing award, a decision yesterday to hand over the presidency to Rogge's main rival, Dr Kim Un-Yong, of South Korea, a man who received a "most serious warning" from those investigating the Salt Lake City Games scandal two years ago, would have tipped the movement backwards into its own murky recent history.

Before the presidential election, the third realistic contender, Dick Pound, of Canada, said the result would determine whether the movement slipped back to the Stone Age, or went on to a Platinum Age.

Platinum won yesterday, and the IOC can now look forward to a minimum of eight years under the stewardship of a man acclaimed as safe, diplomatic and - above all - clean.

Rogge has an impeccable sporting background. He competed in three Olympics (1968, 1972 and 1976) as a Finn class yachtsman, in which category he also captured the world title. He won 10 caps for the Belgian rugby union side.

He is a former lecturer in sports medicine, and is one of the candidates most keen to clamp down on the crucial issue of doping abuse.

His linguistic abilities - he speaks five languages - and his smooth diplomacy established him as the favourite to succeed Samaranch.

In an early sign that he was moving away from the IOC's image of lavish hotel suites and first-class travel, Rogge said he wanted to live with the athletes at the Olympic Village at next year's winter Games in Salt Lake City.

"I would want to fulfil one of my dreams - that is the IOC president would sleep in the Olympic Village," he said.

"I think it's the best place to be in the Olympic Games."

Along with a toughening of the IOC stance on doping, his presidency is likely to see a devolvement of some of the presidential powers built up during Samaranch's 21-year reign.

Yesterday, he went out of his way to emphasise his readiness to work with his defeated opponents, one of whom may end up in a newly-created chief executive role.

Rogge is also expected to do something about the cumbersome nature of the Olympics, which are now so gigantic that only major cities can host them.

"I will devote all my energy to the defence of the credibility of sport wherever it is attacked by doping, corruption and violence," he said.

The Belgian's win was abetted by Samaranch's lobbying of members in Moscow. The 81-year-old Spaniard thus leaves his position like a departing football hero who has scored a hat-trick in a cup final.

Beijing, the city he favoured for the 2000 Olympics, has finally received the Games it craved; his man, Rogge, has ascended to the top job; and his son, Juan Antonio jun, has been confirmed as a newly-elected IOC member for Spain.

Not only that, but the wily old politician has managed to bend the Olympic rules, as he once did to prolong his tenure of the presidency, enabling himself to attend all the meetings of the IOC's executive board as honorary life president.

- INDEPENDENT

www.nzherald.co.nz/olympics