Samaranch era ends in controversy

Juan Antonio Samaranch just could not ride off quietly into his Olympic sunset.

The outgoing International Olympic Committee (IOC) president was granted almost all his dearest wishes at the Moscow IOC session which marked the final days of his 21-year tenure.

Only one wish was unfulfilled -- the hope that he would be able go with peace and unity secured in the IOC and with the acclaim of everyone ringing in his ears.

Like much of the last few years of his period in office, the Spaniard celebrated his 81st birthday on Tuesday at the centre of controversy and criticism.

The two major decisions of the session clearly went his way, a substantial coup for his leadership. Beijing won the right to stage the Olympics despite widespread criticism of China's human rights record and Belgian surgeon Jacques Rogge, his chosen successor, was elected to replace him as IOC president.

But unease within parts of the organisation who saw the election of his son Juan Antonio Samaranch junior to IOC membership as a public relations gaffe exploded into something far more on Monday, the final day of the session.

Samaranch was accused of working behind the scenes for Rogge in the presidential election by Canadian candidate Dick Pound, a key figure in helping the Spaniard turn the Olympics into a commercial success over the last two decades.

With the other main candidate Kim Un-yong of South Korea also complaining that his campaign had been deliberately undermined, the session ended on a discordant note.

The four-day session began with an opening ceremony at the Bolshoi Theatre. For most of the four-day meeting, Samaranch hardly put a foot wrong. But, like the ballet the IOC members watched, there was bitterness at the end of the story.

Samaranch, who brought the session back to the city where he was first elected president in 1980, wanted to make history and Beijing's victory in last Friday's vote on the venue of the 2008 Summer Olympics provided it.

The world's most populous country, which boasts an attractive economy for the blue chips companies who back the Games, won the vote with stunning ease.

Then there were two days of intense politicking before the presidential election, the most important event in Moscow as far as the IOC members were concerned.

LATE DRAMA

Former Olympic yachtsman Rogge, a surgeon with a reputation for diplomacy and linguistic skills, had always been the favourite to win the five-candidate race but was expected to face a serious challenge from Kim and Pound.

Then the drama started to unfold.

Just a day before the vote, Kim, who received a warning in the 1999 Salt Lake City bribery scandal, was asked by the IOC's ethics commission to explain comments he was reported to have made to the media about funding the expenses of IOC members if he became president.

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chief Pound, meanwhile, was being told by Samaranch at the session that the doping situation in sport was in "a mess" and another urgent conference on drugs was needed.

Pound was clearly frustrated and described the offer as an invitation by somebody else to spend his money. When he came third in the vote, won easily by Rogge in the second round, the Canadian let fly, accusing the IOC of being "Eurocentric".

Asked by reporters if he was convinced that Samaranch had worked behind the scenes in the election for Rogge, Pound said: "Yes. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever.

"I am a little disappointed but that's his call...I don't think it's betrayal. I might have hoped that he would have seen me as his successor. I think this was a decision by a Eurocentric organisation that they wanted a European president."

Pound quit his senior positions in the IOC including his role at the head of the marketing commission and his top job at WADA.

It is fitting that Rogge is a surgeon because he is going to need to stitch up some wounds in his first months in office. The Belgian wants to have Pound back in key roles in the IOC and he will need his support to attack what he regards as sport's biggest danger -- the abuse of performance-enhancing drugs.

More importantly, the 59-year-old ex-Olympic yachtsman needs to show the world of sport that he skippers his own boat after the Samaranch era and the events of Moscow.

There are potential storms just around the corner. A U.S. trial on the Salt Lake scandal, the biggest corruption affair in Olympic history, is due to begin at the end of the month.