The 2002 Winter Games bribery scandal has turned the Olympic world upside down, focusing international attention on everyone connected with it, from Frank Joklik to Janet Reno.
That's according to the latest annual rankings of Who's Who in the Olympic movement, compiled by Around the Rings, an international newsletter published electronically from Sydney, Australia.Joklik, the chief executive officer of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, rose from No. 22 in last year's ranking to No. 6 in the "Golden 25" rankings released Monday.
He "faces the biggest challenge in his career as a corporate chief: keeping planning for the 2002 Olympics on track while SLOC is under investigations that could lead to criminal charges and costly fines," the newsletter said.
"Marshaling public support for SLOC in Salt Lake City through what will be a difficult year is another must-do for Joklik. And if SLOC is to cooperate fully with all the investigations . . . Joklik will set the tone for compliance."
This is the second year that Joklik has been the only Utahn to make the list. Last year, the newsletter was based in Atlanta, host of the 1996 Summer Games. Now, the publishers have moved to Sydney, site of the 2000 Summer Games.
The new rankings come just weeks after the International Olympic Committee was confronted with what is likely its greatest ethical crisis, the acknowledgment that Salt Lake City made payments to relatives of IOC members.
The payments began in 1991, four years before the IOC voted to send the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City. They were made through a scholarship program that provided $400,000 to 13 people, including six relatives of IOC members who were to vote on the site of the 2002 Games.
The program, as well as allegations that "agents" brokered blocs of IOC votes for $5 million or more, are the subject of four separate investigations by the FBI, the U.S. Olympic Committee, the IOC and SLOC's own Board of Ethics.
Others involved in the investigations outrank Joklik on the list. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno is No. 3 because Salt Lake City faces "a lengthy and/or embarrassing investigation" by the Justice Department.
The newsletter notes while Salt Lake City "avoided the Death Penalty" -- the loss of the 2002 Games -- the next worst that could happen is an investigation resulting in criminal or civil prosecutions, jail terms or hefty fines.
Last Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI launched a formal investigation into whether Salt Lake officials used bribery and related fraud to secure IOC votes.
The leader of the IOC's own investigation into whether votes were bought and sold, IOC Vice President Dick Pound, is ranked No. 1 by Around the Rings. Pound, a Montreal tax attorney, also oversees marketing for the IOC.
Those two roles will keep him busy this year. He's expected to draft recommendations for review by the IOC Executive Board next month as well as reassure sponsors their investments in the Olympics have not been devalued.
The USOC's top marketer, John Krimsky, ranked No. 4 because of the effect of the scandal on his efforts to raise hundreds of millions of dollars still needed to cover the $1.45 billion cost of putting on the Olympics.
And Marc Hodler, the Swiss IOC member who stunned the Olympic world earlier this month by alleging the so-called agents are selling votes, is ranked No. 5 for throwing "gasoline on a smoldering fire."