Olympics a welcome distraction for Samaranch

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Sydney: International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch said on Thursday he had been through difficult days with the death of his wife, but was happy to get down to the business of running the Sydney Games.

"It has not been easy days for me. But I am happy to be back taking my responsibilities as president of the IOC," a tired-looking Samaranch told reporters after chairing a morning meeting of the daily co-ordination committee at the Games.

Samaranch's wife, who was 69, died early on Sunday as he was flying home from Sydney after learning that her condition had worsened. He attended her funeral service in Barcelona before arriving back in Australia on Wednesday.

Samaranch, 80, said he had heard that his wife was very ill during the opening ceremony last Friday. "It was not easy. During the opening ceremony I got the first news that my wife was very grave," he said.

"During the flight stop-off in India my son told me she had passed away. Life has a beginning and an end. My wife had been sick for some months. It was not a surprise for me."

Samaranch, who has faced calls to quit in the last two years after the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the Olympic movement, also held a brief meeting with the IOC's ruling executive board on Thursday.

"He is very well informed. It is good for him to be busy," Germany's board member Thomas Bach said. "What he has been through in the last 18 months is hard to imagine. It is good to be distracted from the grief and pain he feels."

Jacques Rogge, the IOC's chief co-ordinator of the Sydney Games, added, "It was a business meeting. He was totally hands-on." Samaranch said he had managed to follow some of the Games on television and was pleased with the way they were being received in Europe. In the United States Olympic ratings are below the minimum level the network NBC promised advertisers.

"I am very pleased to see the success of the Games. The look of the city is fantastic," he said. Samaranch looked jaded but managed a joke at the end of short news conference.

Asked if he knew anything about French 400 metres runner Marie-Jose Perec, who has withdrawn from the Olympics after saying she had received threats, Samaranch said, "She is not in my office."



(c) Reuters Limited.