What happened to the Salt Lake City scandal in Olympic history?

The Cause and Effect of Salt Lake City Scandal

There are many hot topics in international sports, especially the bribery scandal of the international Olympic Games centered on Salt Lake City's bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics. People can't help asking-is the IOC really so dark? Is there justice in bidding activities? What kind of blow will the historic Olympic Games and Olympic Movement face?

The seriousness of this scandal, from Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee, who is very familiar to Chinese people, to dozens of senior officials of the organization, is also unexpected. The International Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic Committee immediately began a joint investigation. At the same time, this matter has also attracted the attention of the US Department of Justice and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they have stepped in one after another. With the development of the situation, two bid leaders in Salt Lake City have announced their resignation, and it is expected that more IOC members will also face the fate of being fired.

The scandal broke out.

It is no news that there is serious corruption within the IOC. Over the years, there have been countless rumors about it, and even some books have been published to expose the inside story. However, the reason why it failed to cause a sensation in those years was that the real parties were afraid to speak out for various reasons, and all the guesses were dropped because there was no definite evidence. This time it's different. It was Hodler, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee who was in charge of the Olympic bid for a long time, who exposed the scandal. Swiss lawyer Hodler is 80 years old. He has been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 1963. In the International Olympic Committee, only Havelange can compare with him in this qualification. He served as the vice-chairman of the International Olympic Committee and served as the core department of the International Olympic Committee-the Executive Committee for a long time. At present, Hodler has a long list of positions-President of the Olympic Winter Sports Federation, Chairman of the Coordination Committee of the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics, member of the IOC Judicial Committee, member of the IOC Sports and Law Committee, and so on; He is also a close friend of the current IOC President Samaranch.

June 5438+February last year, the conversation of such a powerful figure who had long participated in the leadership of the International Olympic Committee became the fuse of the Salt Lake City scandal. Hodler said that the corruption of exchanging money for votes had already existed in the process of bidding for the Olympic Games. He singled out four successful cities-Atlanta, Nagano, Sydney and Salt Lake City. In particular, he disclosed the misdeeds of Salt Lake City-setting up scholarships for the relatives of six IOC members with $500,000; Exchange a lot of gifts for votes. In fact, even as Hodler made these remarks, the International Olympic Committee began to investigate the economic problems of the Salt Lake City Bid Committee. Hoddle's words set it off as the most serious scandal in the history of IOC 104.

In-depth investigation

After Hodler's speech, Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, pointed out that since the IOC has already started to investigate Salt Lake City, it will not expand the scope of investigation for the time being, and the problems in Salt Lake City will be investigated first. The International Olympic Committee set up a special team headed by Vice President Pound to take charge of this matter, and the US Olympic Committee, the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee, the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation also quickly launched an investigation into this scandal.

Surprisingly, as the investigation deepened, Samaranch was also involved. The Salt Lake City Bid Committee once gave him a pistol and a rifle, both of which came from the famous Browning Gun Factory. In addition, the survey shows that Ganga, a member of the International Olympic Committee from Congo, is one of the three African committees that receive free medical services in Salt Lake City. He made a net profit of $60,000 in a real estate transaction in Utah, which was the result of arrangements made by members of the Salt Lake City Bid Committee. What is even more unimaginable is that providing free sex services to some IOC members has also become one of the means of Salt Lake City's Olympic bid. On the 9th of this month, it was reported that the credit card of Salt Lake City Bid Committee was actually used to pay for whoring for some IOC members.

chain-reacting

65438+1On October 8th, two senior officials of Salt Lake City Olympic Committee Chairman Jokrick and Vice Chairman Johnson announced their resignations, thus becoming the first victims of this scandal.

Joe Crick is 70 years old and a retired company president. He volunteered to be the chairman of the organizing Committee without any salary. At the press conference, he admitted that the Salt Lake City Bid Committee had provided too many benefits to some IOC members. He said that although he knows nothing about all kinds of gifts and expenses, the current situation needs someone to take responsibility, and such a change can ensure the smooth progress of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. However, Jokrick cannot officially step down until someone takes over.

At the same time, a senior official of the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee called on Samaranch to take the initiative to resign like Jokrick and Johnson to restore people's trust in the Olympic Movement. The official named Brock said: "Only when Samaranch resigns can the Olympic Movement move forward."

Quebec, a Canadian city that lost the right to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, pointed out that the resignation of two officials in Salt Lake City further confirmed the existence of corruption in its bidding process, and many accusations at present seem to have sufficient evidence. As a lawyer, Paquet, the former chairman of Quebec's bid committee, said that if the bribery in Salt Lake City was investigated and verified, he would sue the International Olympic Committee and demand compensation for Quebec's bid fee.

In addition, the International Olympic Committee faces another economic loss. A Swiss newspaper reported that a preferential tax policy that the organization just won from the Swiss government is likely to be ruined by a corruption scandal. It is reported that the International Olympic Committee (IOC), headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, proposed to the Swiss government for exemption from value-added tax as early as four years ago, and was finally approved in September last year. This will save at least 2 million Swiss francs (about 6.5438+0.46 million US dollars) every year.

Embarrassed by the scandal, the IOC has to introduce some new regulations to strengthen anti-corruption, one of which is to prohibit IOC members from visiting the cities that bid for the Olympic Games in the future. In addition, Samaranch also announced that the IOC Executive Board will hold a special meeting next month to study the Salt Lake City scandal and consider how to reform the system and procedures for choosing the host city of the Olympic Games. Samaranch stressed that the crisis faced by the International Olympic Committee is more serious than the political boycott that the organization encountered in the 1980s and the doping scandal in recent years, and all members found to have taken bribes will be dismissed without exception. He said: "If we need to clean it up, we will clean it up, and then the International Olympic Committee will be stronger." China also responded to the scandal. Wu Shaozu, director of the State Sports General Administration, pointed out that China is very supportive of the IOC's in-depth investigation into the corruption scandal, and China does not rule out that Beijing's failure to bid for the 2000 Olympic Games is related to corruption. Wu Shaozu said: "We welcome the investigation, we resolutely oppose corruption, and we hope that the International Olympic Committee is clean."