March 18, 1999
Web posted at: 11:53 a.m. EST (1653 GMT)

In this story: Vote of confidence Bidding field narrowed Tight restrictions RELATED STORIES, SITES

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (CNN) -- International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch said Thursday he plans to serve out his term to oversee reforms aimed at restoring prestige to the Olympics, following the worst scandal in its history.

The IOC announced the first planks in the reform platform a day after an unprecedented expulsion of six members in the Salt Lake City bribery case.

The reforms, adopted during a two-day emergency general assembly convened to deal with the scandal, include a new bid system for the 2006 Winter Olympics as well as the formation of an ethics commission and a 2000 Olympics commission, with the latter to be headed by Samaranch.

A majority of the members on the ethics commission will be from outside the IOC, which is a first for the committee. No appointments were announced.

"We will study the structure of the IOC at all its different levels," Samaranch said of the 2000 Olympics commission. "Our aim is to have another extraordinary session of the IOC by the end of the year to approve the new Olympic charter -- the IOC 2000."

Vote of confidence

The 78-year-old Spaniard had hinted earlier that he might step down before his term ends in late 2001. But the IOC gave him an 86-2 vote of confidence on Wednesday, before members voted on the expulsions. ( 76 K/07 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

"This vote of confidence is pushing me to work harder for the IOC to recover the prestige we lost a few weeks ago very, very soon," Samaranch said.

"I don't know what can happen in the future," he added. "In some papers I've read that I'm very sick. But after the vote of confidence I received yesterday, my intention is to go to the end of my mandate."

The IOC agreed to choose the site of the 2006 Winter Olympics from two finalists and put strict limits on the contact of IOC members with bidders.

And it released an audit showing that the Olympics are in good financial health. Cash, bank deposits and television-rights trust funds totaled $237 million at the end of 1998, and the committee finished the year with a $40 million operating surplus on income of $86 million.

The IOC had not issued a unified audit in four years, although its records were available to the public in various forms.

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Bidding field narrowed

The IOC voted unanimously with one abstention to have a 15-member panel trim the six hopefuls for 2006 down to a final pair, then immediately send that race to the floor for a ballot.

The plan is designed only for the selection of the 2006 site, a process that concludes June 19 in Seoul, South Korea. But the IOC has promised permanent changes after more review.

The action marks a major shift from the traditional system of letting the members choose from among all bidding cities, a system that became fraught with gifts and freebies and led to the bribery scandal.

The assembly voted to expel six longtime members who investigators said took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, travel, medical care and lavish gifts from Salt Lake City bidders who wound up winning the 2002 Winter Games.

But the change in the bidding system is not as radical as what was first proposed -- a total stripping of the 2006 vote from the general membership. That plan produced an uproar from delegates who said they would be punished for the corrupt acts of a few colleagues.

The six cities bidding for the 2006 Winter Olympics will have 50 minutes each to present their final reports to the full IOC on June 18 at the general assembly in Seoul.

The next day, the selection panel will be appointed and will review the candidacies and announce its choices. The full membership -- now 108 people -- will then vote in a secret ballot.

Tight restrictions

Rules imposed by Samaranch when the Salt Lake City scandal broke remain in place, barring travel by members to cities or by city representatives to members' hometowns.

Bidders and some IOC members have complained that the new rules and voting procedure allowed too little chance to see and learn about various bids.

"For us and other cities bidding for the first time, it is a hard thing," said Evelina Christillin, the president of bid for Turin, Italy. She said her committee would send videotapes and printed reports to members.

The northern Italian city of Turin is generally considered the second choice behind Sion, in the industrial south of Switzerland about 50 miles (80 km) from the IOC's headquarters.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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