Marc Hodler probably evokes mixed feelings among many in Utah. The former vice president of the International Olympic Committee, Hodler, who died Wednesday in Switzerland, was the man most responsible for fanning what grew into a forest fire of media attention known as the Salt Lake Olympic bid scandal.
It was uncomfortable for many in Utah. It gave the place a spate of bad publicity. It raised rumors and doubts about people in the highest government offices in the state.
But neither the publicity nor the scandal were Hodler's fault. On the contrary, he was doing his duty as an IOC member in good standing, and he was the only one willing to speak publicly about what had become a culture of corruption within the organization. As a result of his courage, the IOC was forced to make sweeping changes and acknowledge its own problems — problems that ran contrary to the much-touted Olympic ideals.
The evidence is clear that his focus was on corruption within the IOC, not on destroying the Salt Lake City Olympics.
There were others, including overzealous federal prosecutors in this country, who turned the attention on Salt Lake City, singling out bid leaders Tom Welch and Dave Johnson and indicting them on charges that had no chance of leading to convictions because their actions violated no laws. Hodler never absolved the Salt Lake bidders for doling out lavish gifts in exchange for votes, but he clearly identified similar vote-buying abuses in the bidding processes for Sydney, Nagano and Atlanta — previous hosts of Olympic games.
And he laid out clearly how the IOC had fostered such corruption by demanding bribes, including multimillion dollar payments in exchange for successful bids.
Salt Lake City became the whipping boy for all of this. And yet, to hear former Salt Lake City Olympic Committee leader and current Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, tell it, Hodler was a huge supporter and help to the 2002 Olympics, which generally were recognized as a great success.
The sum total of Hodler's record, then, is a true devotion to the Olympic movement, which ought to be about fair play and honesty in its governing body as well as among its participating athletes. His is a legacy of courage and honesty — traits we're certain most Utahns admire.
Whether his efforts ultimately succeed in the long run remains to be seen. Two years ago, a BBC investigation uncovered evidence that some IOC members still accept bribes. The big question is whether anyone else in the organization has the courage to take over where Hodler left off.