International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch is being asked to appear before Congress to help explain what went wrong with Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Games.
The hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee is set for April 14 in Washington, D.C. The chairman of the committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has suggested the Olympics could lose its tax-exempt status in the United States.Samaranch wouldn't be alone. Six officials from the U.S. Olympic Committee including U.S. Olympic Committee President Bill Hybl and the members of the special oversight committee that investigated Salt Lake's bid plan to attend.
The investigative panel was chaired by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell and includes Ken Duberstein, who served as chief of staff to former President Ronald Reagan.
No one from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee is on the witness list.
"We're looking at the big picture here," said Pia Pialorsi, press secretary for the Senate Commerce Committee. "We're looking at what reforms need to be implemented at the USOC and IOC level."
Those reforms are making everyone associated with the Olympics nervous, especially the threat of losing their tax-exempt status. Without that status, Olympic sponsors would end up paying more.
Sponsors are already skittish because of the Salt Lake bid scandal that resulted from the allegations of vote-buying that surfaced late last year. Some have suggested they won't sign up for 2002; others may be looking to pay less.
The issue is especially crucial to Salt Lake City's Olympics. Corporate sponsors are the largest source of revenue in the organizing committee's $1.45 billion budget.
New SLOC President Mitt Romney has already suggested millions of dollars in budget cuts that could be made if sponsor revenues fall short. Romney is also contacting many sponsors himself.
Although Samaranch told reporters in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week that he would go to Washington, D.C., if invited, a spokesman for the IOC said the president has not yet responded to the Senate invitation.
"I don't think anything has changed since his statement," the spokesman, Theo Chapman, said Tuesday. Chapman said the IOC president returned from a trip to Paris Tuesday afternoon and may not have seen the request.
Samaranch said last week at the close of an extraordinary session of the IOC that saw six members expelled that he was waiting to hear from the Senate Commerce Committee.
"I'm always very pleased to go to the United States," Samaranch said, noting that he had read in the press that he would be asked to appear. "If I received an official invitation, I think I would" accept.
Also Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that top sponsor John Hancock insurance has called for embattled Australian IOC member Phil Coles to resign from the IOC and the board of Sydney's organizing committee for the 2000 Summer Games.
Coles received a severe censure from the IOC for accepting excessive hospitality from the Salt Lake City bid committee that won the 2002 Winter Games.
He is under further investigation by the IOC following his ex-wife's claims that he took jewelry from a Greek businessman associated with Athens' failed bid for the 1996 Summer Games.
"Now it is time for Mr. Coles to do the right thing and resign from the IOC," John Hancock chief David D'Alessandro said in a statement. "He is damaging the movement worldwide as well as Australia's outstanding efforts to stage what will be extraordinary Games."
But Coles, under enormous pressure to resign from a majority of the Sydney organizing committee board, including president Michael Knight, is adamant he won't be quitting.