Bribery scandal rocks IOC

Hodler forced the IOC to admit that they had been concerned for some time about the emergence of professional agents who have been accused of doing deals for votes en bloc worth up to five million dollars.

The IOC is likely to go hunting for the agents and any members who have been involved in vote-rigging.

Samaranch said: 8220;If necessary we will expel members if the committee thinks they are guilty.8221;

The integrity of the whole Olympic movement has been endangered by some of the most turbulent few days in Olympic historyin Lausanne.

8220;We ask the athletes to compete with integrity. The members must do the same,8221; the IOC vice-president Anita Defrantz of the United States said.

A special ad hoc Olympic committee will first study the accusations of payments made in Salt Lake city8217;s successful bid to stage the 2002 winter Games.

Salt Lake officials said last week that, during the bidding process, officials had organised tuition assistants and athlete-training programmes for 13 people 8212; six of whom were direct relatives of IOC members.

The programmes cost nearly 400,000 and the IOC must decide whether Salt Lake broke Olympic rules which ban them from offering gifts to members or their relatives worth more than 150.

But the review is likely to go further than Salt Lake 8212; bearing in mind Hodler8217;s accusations.

Gifted8217; officials

SYDNEY: Lavish gifts to IOC members were an accepted part of the bidding process to host the games, an organiser involved in three successive Australian bids to host the Olympicssaid today.

8220;But I never saw money changing hands in an underhand fashion,8221; said Sallyanne Atkinson, who was involved in Sydney8217;s successful 2000 bid and Melbourne8217;s bid for the 1996 Olympics and led the unsuccessful bid for Brisbane to host the 1992 Games.

Atkinson said gifts including offers of holidays, entertainment and 8220;sometimes material things8221; were part of the way the Olympic system operated and the 8220;wining and dining8221; was often lavish.

8220;When you have a lot of gift givers trying to outgive each other then things get bigger and bigger,8221; she said.

Unfair, says China

BANGKOK: China called for the 8220;purity8221; of the Olympic movement to be upheld in its first reaction today to the sleaze scandals embroiling games bids.

Chinese Olympic Committee COC spokeswoman He Huixian highlighted how Beijing considered it had been unfairly treated when it lost the 2000 games to Sydney, and wanted changes for its new campaign to get the 2008 games.Reports of the claims of bribery andcorruption to win Olympic bids have become the talk of the Asian Games where Beijing and the Japanese city of Osaka have already started rival lobbying for 2008. 8220;I think the main reason that Beijing did not get the 2000 games is that non-sports factors became involved,8221; the spokeswoman said.

IOC vice-president8217;s bombshell