Olympic Officials Step Down

The Olympic phrase "faster, higher" is supposed to refer to awesome athletic performance, not bribes for IOC officials.But the scandal that has engulfed the IOC selection of Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Games is shaking the IOC to the core. Two top Salt Lake City Olympic officials stepped down today, and more may go as four separate investigations probe allegations of bribery concerning the awarding of the games to the city. On Friday, Frank Joklik, president of the city's Olympic organizing committee, stepped aside voluntarily and Dave Johnson, the local committee's senior vice president, resigned. "The whole thing has become a tremendous embarrassment not only to the Salt Lake committee but also to the international committee, and it is going to have lasting consequences for both," says TIME correspondent Richard Woodbury.

Winning the right to host the Olympics means big money and long-lasting prestige for any city, and the pattern of bribes and gifts to IOC members and their families alleged in this case may prove to be all too familiar. Did Salt Lake City Olympic officials bribe some IOC members or get jobs for their relatives? Is this sort of persuasion -- in the unfortunate phrase of one top IOC official who said expensive gifts from would-be hosts are "customary" -- well, customary? Says Woodbury: "Now, it's not merely how guilty was the Salt Lake committee in giving, but also how guilty was the IOC in soliciting? How much bribery was there in this episode and how much extortion? And was this the only IOC selection decision that may have been tainted?"

The resignations in Salt Lake City are only the first repercussions as the scandal grows. "The IOC site selection process will now almost surely be reformed," says Woodbury. "Perhaps it will be put into the hands of fewer IOC members or in the hands of the executive hierarchy." Meanwhile, whatever happened, the IOC says it is standing by its choice of Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Games. "They are the biggest and most expensive Winter Games in history," says Woodbury, "and the preparations are very far along."