SALT LAKE CITY, JAN 13: The IOC has enough evidence to complete its bribery investigation and will recommend expelling some members and changing how cities are awarded the Olympics.The report by the six-member IOC commission investigating bribery allegations in Salt Lake City's winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games will be published January 24 after a meeting of the International Olympic Committee's executive board in Lausanne, Switzerland.``The commission has identified improper behaviour by certain IOC members with respect to the Salt Lake City bid,'' the IOC said on Tuesday through its newly hired New York public relations firm, Hill and Knowlton.The IOC sent letters this week to members implicated in the investigation, demanding an explanation. IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch has said guilty members - at least eight are believed to have been implicated - would be expelled or asked to resign.The report also will include recommended changes in the bidding for Olympic Games and the IOC election process.The scandal forced the SLOC to cancel its meeting today because the committee's ethics panel isn't ready to report results of its investigation.The investigation by the five-member panel, which has a February 11 deadline, is one of four inquiries examining accusations of lavish gifts, cash and scholarships given to IOC members and their relatives by the Salt Lake bid committee that landed the Games in 1995.The other investigations are by the US Olympic committee and the justice department.As international and local organizers struggled with the worst corruption scandal in Olympic history, even the mascot for the Salt Lake Games was lying low.Organizers indefinitely postponed the unveiling of Salt Lake's official mascot yesterday.The unveiling was to have been February 8, coinciding with the three-year countdown to the 2002 Winter Games. A date for the mascot's debut will be announced next month.``We want to introduce the mascot for 2002 in an atmosphere of community celebration. This is not the appropriate time,'' said Shelley Thomas, senior vice president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.``Our first priority right now is the prompt resolution of all inquiries, and taking whatever action is necessary to move forward from this difficult period,'' Thomas said. ``Our mascot should receive the positive attention it deserves.''Organizers originally hoped to show the mascot during the closing ceremonies of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, then later in time for the Christmas season.But focus groups in several cities thought early designs didn't look Olympic enough, and the IOC only recently approved the design.
