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Gold medal for parachuting? Billiards and others lobby for spot at 2004 Olympics
Posted: Friday December 10, 1999 12:58 PM LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- An Olympic gold medal for parachuting? That's one of the scenarios being contemplated by the International Olympic Committee as it considers possible new sports for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, Greece. The IOC said Thursday it has received requests from more than a dozen recognized sports federations to be added to the Olympic program in Athens. The list includes parachuting, billiards, underwater swimming, roller skating and surfing. There are also several sports that have been lobbying for years: golf, ballroom dancing, bowling, rugby, squash and racquetball. And then there's the sport that is considered the favorite for becoming a new medal event in Athens: water skiing. "We have to evaluate the quotas for Athens and see if it's possible to accept new sports," IOC sports director Gilbert Felli. "Hopefully, the executive board will take a final decision in February." A record 28 sports are on the program for next year's Sydney Games. The lineup includes two new Olympic sports: triathlon and taekwondo. The IOC has said that in order to add new sports, others have to be dropped. But until now, the Olympics have continued to grow bigger without any sports being axed. On another issue, Felli said NHL players probably would compete at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. "The International Ice Hockey Federation has more or less finalized it," he said. "The discussions between the federation and the NHL are going in the right direction." NHL players competed in the Olympics for the first time in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. The NHL stopped its season for two weeks, but was unhappy most of the games had poor broadcast times in the United States and received scant attention from network television. The NHL and the NHL Players Association don't want to shut down the season for two weeks again. Felli reported to the IOC executive board on the eve of this weekend's crucial general assembly, where members will vote on a package of reforms designed to prevent any further corruption in the Olympic bidding process. The IOC announced Thursday that president Juan Antonio Samaranch will submit to a "voluntary interview" with FBI agents investigating the Salt Lake City bribery scandal. But the IOC said it reached agreement with the Justice Department that the meeting would not take place next week, when Samaranch will travel to Washington to appear at a Congressional hearing. Instead, Samaranch will speak to investigators at a later date suitable to both sides, the IOC said. Francois Carrard, the IOC's director general, said Wednesday that Samaranch was not a target of the investigation. Samaranch is due to appear Wednesday before the House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Michigan Republican Fred Upton. It will be Samaranch's first trip to the United States since the Salt Lake City scandal broke a year ago. More than US$1.2 million in cash, scholarships, gifts and other inducements were offered to IOC members and their families during the winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games. In another development, the IOC said cyclists and triathletes at next year's Sydney Olympics will undergo the first pre-event blood testing in the history of the summer games. The blood tests will be carried out by the international cycling and triathlon federations just hours before competition. The screening is in addition to the traditional urine controls conducted by the IOC on Olympic athletes immediately after their events. The blood tests, which have been used regularly in international cycling, are officially classified as "health checks" and not doping tests. The test measures the level of red blood cells in the body. If the level is above 50 percent, it is deemed medically unsafe for the athlete to compete and he is ruled ineligible for that competition. A high level of red blood cells can be an indication of the use of erythropoietin (EPO), a banned performance-enhancing hormone. But there is no reliable test yet for detecting EPO.
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