MOSCOW — Belgium's Jacques Rogge was elected president of the International Olympic Committee Monday and said his top priority will be ensuring the success of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
Rogge, a smooth and sophisticated 59-year-old orthopedic surgeon, said he'd like to sleep in the athletes village at the University of Utah during the Games.
"I think it's the best place to be in an Olympic Games," said Rogge, a three-time Olympian in yachting. "I'm going to see Mitt Romney tomorrow, and I will ask Mitt if he can make a room available to me."
He will also arrange a visit to Salt Lake City. "I have never been to Salt Lake City. It's about time I get there."
Romney, president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, said Rogge is welcome to stay in the Olympic Village. "I think that's an absolutely wonderful symbol and gesture to make. It shows where his heart is. I'm sure we'll find room," he said.
Romney, who's spent the last week here at the IOC's meetings, said he appreciated that Rogge was comfortable with a less-opulent style for the Olympic movement.
"I think his down-to-earth roots will shape the Olympic movement. . . . The IOC is going to have to get used to home cooking in Salt Lake."
Rogge received the required majority of the 110 votes cast by IOC members after just two rounds of voting to succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch, who served 21 years as president.
The final vote was 59 ballots cast for Rogge; 23 for South Korea's Un Yong Kim; 22 for Canada's Dick Pound; and six for Hungary's Pal Schmitt. Anita DeFrantz, the only American in the race, was eliminated on the first ballot after receiving the fewest number of votes.
The vote was seen as a choice between the old and the new IOC, whose aristocratic airs were tempered by the reforms adopted in the wake of the Salt Lake bribery scandal.
"Jacques promises a different kind of style," said John Macaloon, an Olympic historian and professor at the University of Chicago. "He is not an egotist. He manages to keep himself in the background."
DeFrantz said she received only nine votes because her supporters feared Kim might win "and they wanted to vote for Jacques without considering anyone else."
She said Kim was hurt "a lot" by reports in the Deseret News and other media on Sunday that he was proposing IOC members would be paid a "minimum" of $50,000 a year toward their Olympic expenses.
"The members who feel strongly about being volunteers were shocked," DeFrantz said. "Also, electing a president who had been severely sanctioned did not sit well with the membership."
In 1999, Kim received the "most serious of warnings" from his fellow IOC members because of assistance accepted by his children from Salt Lake bidders. His son, John Kim, was indicted in U.S. District Court on charges connected to a job arranged for him in Salt Lake by the bid team.
Marc Hodler of Switzerland said what Kim was offering to IOC members was "not bribery in the sense of penal law" but that the intent was clear. "To me, it's a comfort to see no more than 23 votes can be bought," he said. Kim received 23 votes in the first round.
Hodler, who did use the word bribe to describe what Salt Lake bidders did to win the 2002 Games, also called for the IOC Ethics Commission to investigate further into Kim's proposal. "I believe that must be the end of him," Hodler said.
The ethics commission did look into Kim's proposal as a possible violation of the IOC's new campaign rules but took no action after Kim said he "never proposed any figure in this matter."
"We didn't have any other evidence," the commission's chairman, Keba Mbaye of Senegal said. The Deseret News was never questioned about the interview, even after investigators were told it had been taped.
Mbaye said he did not believe the inquiry affected Monday's vote. "I think the decision was taken by the IOC members before that." He announced Monday he will step down from the IOC after the 2002 Games.
Kim, however, complained of what he termed an "11th-hour big hustle for nothing" on Sunday night as he scrambled for votes in the lobby of the Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel, where the IOC has been meeting since July 9.
Kim, who told the Deseret News he did not dispute Sunday's article, skipped the formal ceremony where the vote was announced, a surprising breach of protocol. His supporters said he was not pleased with the results.
Rogge maintained a diplomatic demeanor throughout the campaign. That was a big plus with IOC members, who have become much more conscious of the organization's image after the Salt Lake scandal.
"Most people, if they know we exist, think us as being horrible people," DeFrantz said.
Thomas Bach of Germany said Rogge "is a representative of the new reformed IOC. This is important globally."
Asked about Kim, Prince Albert of Monaco said, "After what happened in the last 48 hours it doesn't indicate he would have been the man for that position."
During a telephone news conference Monday from Moscow, Romney told reporters construction has started on the plaza where SLOC will hold nightly medals-presentation ceremonies. The plaza, planned to seat 10,000 and have standing room for another 10,000, is in the block northeast of the Delta Center. Its use has been donated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints along with $5 million for outfitting it.
"With some of the increasingly sophisticated sound equipment we will be using at the medals plaza, we find we are going to need more money than the original contribution from the church. But I certainly am not going to go back and ask for more," Romney said.
He said the additional cost will be covered by money SLOC is using for the so-called "look of the Games" program that will dress up downtown Salt Lake City with Olympic images. Some of that money is coming from the IOC.
Romney added that payback of the the $5 million from the IOC has been "redefined." Our agreement now states that only if the Games show a profit do we have to pay back the $5 million made available to us additionally for the look of the Games. If there is not an overall profit, we do not pay back this money."
Contributing: Deseret News staff writer Gib Twymann
E-MAIL: lisa@desnews.com