Word: killanin
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...drivers have been spotted in a week. The dark worry of terrorism that has lately attended all Olympic gatherings seems somewhat lighter on the eve of the XIV Winter Games (remember, Yugoslavia confounded Hitler without much help). Four years ago, at Lake Placid and Moscow, then I.O.C. President Lord Killanin spoke defensively about the very future of the Olympics. The question was actually posed: Should there be Olympic Games? Anyone who still regarded these quadrennial sports feasts as havens from the troubles afflicting mankind had not been paying attention...
...Angeles have amended the city charter to make sure taxpayers could not be charged for the Games. So the I.O.C. would just have to waive its fundamental rule of awarding the franchise to a city and instead hand it over to a board of businessmen. Past I.O.C. President Lord Killanin, a sparky Irishman, sputtered in reply, "You may be the only horse hi the race, but you still have to cross the finish line." Once the private organizing committee and the U.S.O.C. jointly contracted to guarantee zero financial liability for the city, the face-saving technicality was agreed...
...boycott did reduce Lord Killanin and the Soviet Olympic Committee to pathetic figures, wailing about the future of the Olympics, decrying America's moral choice, denying simultaneously that the noticeable absence tarnished the games. Whether or not you support the boycott, and whether or not Soviet medal figures and the number of records established had been the same without the boycott, the Games were undermined substantially. But did we intend to undermine the games or the Soviet Union? The second is contingent on the first, and both were neatly, if insignificantly, accomplished...
Were it not for the remarks of the presidents of the International Olympic Committee, the political significance of the Olympics would probably never be in question. Yet as recently as July 14, Lord Killanin opened a session of the I.O.C. by expressing his great fear for the future of the Games "if politicians continue to make use of sport for their own ends." Steady as the Olympic torch, that sort of mindlessness has been passed from I.O.C. president to I.O.C. president, from Avery Brundage to Killanin, and soon, most likely, to President-elect Juan Antonio Samaranch, who sounds...
...Killanin and Brundage have always contended that the Games are contests among individuals, not nations. This is a patently preposterous claim, given the I.O.C. prohibition against athletes competing as individuals rather than as nationals of a specific country. Several countries that refused to lend their national stature to the opening ceremonies were nevertheless happy to be identified in the Games. The nuances grow tedious, the examples superfluous. Every country that has ever participated in the Olympic Games, ancient or modern, knows that the events have political analogues, effects and overtones, and that the host country always gains useful prestige. When...