SYDNEY, Australia -- A necklace given to IOC Vice President Anita DeFrantz in Tokyo, Japan, in 1990, did not count as a gift from a bid city, an IOC spokesman says.
DeFrantz received one of 150 gold-chain necklaces handed out before an annual session of the IOC by the wife of the Japanese member of the IOC, Chihara Igaya, according to IOC communications director Franklin Servan-Schreiber.He said the necklace, featuring the five Olympic rings, was considered a gift from one IOC member to another and was thus exempt from a $200 gift limit in place at the time for bid cities.
"Traditionally, a member in your country welcomes you," Servan-Schreiber said. "It's part of being nice to each other. I guess they want (other members) to remember the session" held in their country.
He said IOC members and staff have been given, for example, pillboxes at past sessions.
Salt Lake City, which will host the 2002 Winter Games, is scheduled to hold the annual meeting of the entire IOC membership before the Games begin.
Nagano, Japan, successfully bid against Salt Lake City for the 1998 Winter Games. The Japanese city's lavish gift-giving practices were cited by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee's own ethics board investigation as a precursor to the Utah scholarship and gift-giving scandal.
In the past, including in testimony before congressional committees, DeFrantz has said she did not accept gifts from bid cities. Servan-Schreiber said the value of the necklace, believed to be gold with semi-precious stones, was not known. However, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Thursday that an identical necklace had been appraised by a Salt Lake jeweler at $500, though it probably would have cost less if it were mass-produced.
DeFrantz was in Sydney this week for a meeting of IOC Executive Board that was scheduled to end Friday morning local time. Servan-Schreiber said she has referred questions about the gift to him.