Hail to the Chief - SPORTING CHANCE by Joaquin M. Henson

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch has been described as corrupt, despotic, extravagant, and devious by his harshest critics. But even those who make it a habit to harangue Samaranch must admit the Catalan from Barcelona rescued the Olympics from bankruptcy and turned it into a sustainable enterprise that has assured its long-term existence as a world-wide spectacle.

Samaranch, 81, arrives tonight in the course of a five-nation swing of Asia. He leaves tomorrow afternoon.

When politics threatened to kill the Olympics in the 1980s, Samaranch offered an alternative to galvanize a united front among feuding nations. He put cash on the table and made it attractive for IOC delegates to keep the Olympic fire burning.

It was easy to justify Samaranch’s strategy of commercialization. His ultimate objective was to spread global goodwill through sports. The Olympics was the ideal staging area for countries of the world to unite in friendly competition. It was the window that let the sunshine in. Samaranch knew that for the Olympics to survive the test of time, it had to be economically viable.

Samaranch worked hard to promote the Olympics. He dealt with crooks, thieves, and brigands masquerading as IOC delegates. He dispensed favors. He traveled far and wide as the Olympics’ No. 1 drumbeater. He knew what he was up against — an imperfect world — and to get the Olympics on track, he had to be shrewd, manipulative, and determined.

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Not too many people know that Samaranch competed as an amateur featherweight boxer at the Catalonia championships in the early 1940s and his father was a sportswriter with the penname "Stick." He was known as "Kid Samaranch." However, his ring career was short-lived. He gave up boxing to work in the family’s textile business and redirected his attention on sports to promote roller hockey in Spain.

Samaranch used his involvement in sports to gain political mileage. Eventually, he became a prominent figure in Gen. Francisco Franco’s fascist regime. Two years after Franco died in 1975, Samaranch was named Spain’s first Ambassador to Moscow. Samaranch positioned himself to influence Moscow’s hosting of the Olympics in 1980 – the year Lord Killanin stepped down as IOC President and an election was held. Samaranch was in the eye of the storm and a visible Olympic crusader in the wake of 60 countries boycotting the Moscow Games. He was voted IOC President to serve an initial term of eight years via an absolute majority of 47 ballots in the first round. He would be elected to serve three more terms of four years each. The IOC had less than $500,000 in the bank when Samaranch took over from Lord Killanin.

For a while, it looked like Samaranch was doomed to failure. Russia and its allies boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in retaliation of the Free World snub four years earlier. But Samaranch wouldn’t be denied. He convinced 160 to 167 countries in the Olympic fold to participate at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Then more and more countries joined the IOC as Samaranch buried the ugly head of politics using a high-profile media campaign that resulted in generating over $5.5 billion in worldwide TV and sponsorship rights guaranteeing the governing body’s financial stability until 2010.

Samaranch didn’t stop there. Realizing the uneven distribution of wealth around the world, he created a $122 million fund to build sports facilities and provide athletic scholarships for developing nations.

In 1995, Samaranch spoke at the 50th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and expounded on the spirit of Olympism. "The Olympic movement uses its means so that people may live together on this earth in a harmonious concert of their differences but in total equality," he said. "The Olympic ideal is a hymn to tolerance and understanding between people and cultures. It is an invitation to compete, but compete with respect for others. In this way, Olympism is a school of democracy. The Olympic ideal is a torch of hope to young people. Sport is a school for life in society, perhaps the best one. The aim of the IOC is precisely to give it a meaning."

In 1997, Samaranch was voted to a fourth term as IOC President. He should’ve been ruled ineligible because of the mandatory retirement age of 75 but the IOC conveniently raised the limit to 80 before the polls. Samaranch explained that he still had a lot to do in pushing for reforms.

In 1999, all hell broke loose as several IOC delegates were exposed in media for receiving illegal gifts and doleouts in exchange for their votes in choosing host cities for the Summer and Winter Olympics. Samaranch himself was assailed for accepting Browning firearms worth $2,000 and a $28,000 Samurai sword from Winter Games bidders. But after sanctioning IOC officials for indiscretion, Samaranch got a vote of confidence from the General Assembly to finish out his term.

Samaranch’s legacy is enshrined in the Olympic Museum that was inaugurated at Lausanne in 1993. He was criticized for accepting what critics called "bribe money" to finance the construction of the $60 million building, his pet project. Whether or not the Museum is a monument to Samaranch is beside the point. The Museum is a lasting testament of the Olympic spirit – that is the important thing.

Roger Cohen and Jere Longman, writing in The New York Times, said there is no evidence that Samaranch ever sought personal enrichment from the Olympics.

"I have had a fairly full life," said Samaranch, quoted by Cohen and Longman. "I look back and think maybe I made a few mistakes. But I got a few things right. I am an old man. In general, people respect me. But there are always a few exceptions."

Like him or not, you’ve got to credit Samaranch for keeping the Olympic spirit alive throughout the world. If only for that, he deserves respect and admiration.