SEOUL, South Korea -- The bad press from the Salt Lake scandal is wearing on members of the International Olympic Committee who wrapped up a week of meetings here Sunday.
Much of their frustration is aimed at what is being euphemistically described as a "clear Anglo-Saxon pressure point" -- the United States, and, to a lesser extent, Australia.IOC Communications Director Franklin Servan-Schreiber told the IOC Saturday the media in those two countries alone were responsible for nearly 40 percent of the stories about the scandal.
In fact, Servan-Schreiber referred to the scandal as a "media crisis" throughout his report. "You guys were tumbling over each other to get interviews," he told a group of reporters later.
There was some grumbling by IOC members after Servan-Schreiber's report that he'd been too accommodating to the media, especially when he opened a dusty storage closet to show what happened to the guns given to IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch by Salt Lake bidders.
The Swiss-based IOC -- which counts among its members royalty, government and business leaders from around the world -- has long been seen as an elite club whose doors are closed to outsiders.
But that changed after stories surfaced late last year about the more than $1 million spent by Salt Lake bidders to woo the votes of IOC members for the 2002 Winter Games.
That the first real evidence of cash, gifts, scholarships, trips and other inducements came from an American city has not sat well with many IOC members who already resent the influence the United States has over the Olympics.
The week's most telling comments came from Mario Vazquez Rana, an IOC member from Mexico. After a presentation by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee earlier in the week, Rana lashed out at the United States.
"I can assure you that the problems inherent to corruption was born from people in Salt Lake City," said Rana. "I am sorry to say this is something that comes from that wonderful country, the United States of America."
Because the IOC meeting was broadcast via closed-circuit to a roomful of journalists, Rana's comments received widespread media attention and focused new attention on the anti-American attitude.
Alex Gilady, an IOC member from Israel, suggested that Rana spoke for many members when he condemned the United States but shouldn't have made his comments in what's now a public forum.
"Mario Vazquez Rana was out of line because we are an organization that is trying to make peace, not war," Gilady said. "He reflects a lot of our feelings, but he should be more clever than this."
Jim Easton, one of the two IOC members from the United States, agreed there is an anti-American attitude among some of his colleagues that's been made worse by the scandal.
"There does seem to be an underlying backlash against America because of the way it handled this issue," Easton said.
But he said the resentment is not really aimed at Salt Lake City. "I don't think it's directed that strongly toward Salt Lake. I think Salt Lake has done it's job of cleaning up the (organizing) committee."
It's no secret that many IOC members were incensed by the hearings on the IOC's response to the scandal held last April in Washington, D.C., by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who's a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination.
Samaranch turned down a request by McCain to appear before the committee, sending instead Easton and the other IOC member from the United States, Anita DeFrantz.
The IOC president said here this week that many IOC members are afraid to travel to the United States because of the FBI's ongoing criminal investigation of the scandal.
Sunday, IOC Director General Francois Carrard advised members what to do if they are contacted by the FBI while in the United States. He said the IOC has retained legal counsel in the United States.
Four members of the IOC Coordination Commission submitted to interviews while in Salt Lake City last month while on their annual visit to review preparations for the 2002 Winter Games.
Carrard said IOC members have the right to refuse requests for interviews from U.S. government agencies, but then they face the possibility of being subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.
He said the four members already interviewed did so voluntarily. "So far, everything has been done very discreetly," Carrard said.
McCain has warned that if he is not happy with the reforms expected to be adopted by the IOC in December, he will introduce legislation to take away a major source of revenue.
His proposal would turn over the hundreds of millions of dollars raised from the sale of the U.S. broadcast rights for an Olympics to the U.S. Olympic Committee.
"The threats that were made, that has not gone over well," Easton said.
Many IOC members also did not like the USOC's response to the scandal -- an investigation headed by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell that blamed the IOC for creating a culture of corruption.
The USOC, Easton said, "appeared to people to be leading an anti-IOC campaign. I'm not sure that's true . . . I think maybe the USOC has pushed a little hard on some things that have irritated IOC members."
USOC Vice President Paul George, who was attending his first meeting of the IOC, said he wasn't able to judge the depth of anti-American sentiment. "After an earthquake, there are aftershocks. We are seeing some," George said.
Saturday's selection by the IOC of Turin, Italy, as the host of the 2006 Winter Games over longtime favorite Sion, Switzerland, may be one of those aftershocks.
Turin won 53-36, an unexpectedly large margin. "It's very hard to explain the difference," said Jean-Claude Killy, an IOC member from France. Killy headed the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France.
But despite his experience, Killy barely was elected to the selection panel that eliminated four of the six candidates on Saturday. The panel is part of the IOC's new selection process that's supposed to be less political.
Not so, said Killy. "We added some people who had never seen snow . . . This was a political vote, not a technical vote," he said of the panel's selection. "I'm a little bitter about it myself."
Even more bitter are officials from Sion's bid. The Swiss city had run against Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Games.
Without the scandal, Sion would have won, according to Gilbert DeBonaire, the city's former mayor and now a member of the Swiss national assembly from the Valais region.
"I think Salt Lake City for us was a very bad story," DeBonaire said.