DOPING SUMMIT ENDS IN DISARRAY

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - No matter how hard they tried to claim
victory, International Olympic Committee leaders couldn't disguise the
reality: Their authority has eroded even further.

In a blunt rejection of that leadership, the 15 European Union
governments refused to accept a watered-down final resolution at the
Olympic drug summit, which ended Thursday.

Their stance was a sharp setback for the IOC and its president, Juan
Antonio Samaranch, as they struggled to regain credibility in the wake
of the Salt Lake corruption scandals.

"These issues are bigger than the IOC," British Sports Minister Tony
Banks said. "It might come as a surprise to the IOC to find there is
actually something bigger than the IOC, but there is."

The U.S. Olympic Committee, the IOC's most important national branch
and a consistent ally of Samaranch, offered only lukewarm support.

When Samaranch called the meeting a "big victory" in the fight against
doping, USOC executive director Dick Schultz countered: "Everybody
tends to exaggerate."

"It's one of the IOC's first experiences with democracy and they had
to learn how to deal with it," he said.

While the conference laid the groundwork for major anti-drug
initiatives, the resolutions fell far short of the tough, immediate
action the IOC needed to reassert its legitimacy.

The IOC had to back off the two main planks of the meeting: creating
an international anti-doping agency and imposing a mandatory minimum
two-year drug sanctions.

"The IOC is too weak," said Roland Baar, a member of the IOC athletes'
commission.

Even a top IOC leader conceded the three-day meeting failed to
accomplish what the committee had hoped for.

"We haven't dealt with it," IOC vice president Dick Pound said. "We
are now in a position to do so."

The U.S. government, which had serious reservations about parts of the
IOC plan, voted for the revised package. But Barry McCaffrey, the
White House drug policy adviser who had attacked the IOC's
credibility and called for reforms, described the final declaration
only as a "good first step."

Samaranch fired back at McCaffrey in his closing news conference,
suggesting the White House was in no position to lecture.

"We are very thankful he is so interested in the IOC," Samaranch said.
"But we also told him he had many problems in his own country on doping."

Samaranch has withstood calls for his resignation from outside the
committee, and wrapped up the summit by saying the IOC emerged
"stronger" from the conference.

But the USOC appeared to back off its previous unqualified support for
him.

Two weeks ago, Schultz said the USOC fully supported Samaranch and
believed he was the only person capable of leading the IOC out of its
crisis.

On Thursday, he said:

"I don't see any reason to change the position at this point as long
as we are making progress and moving forward and that he can still
command the respect of IOC members.

"I don't think our position has changed. I think that we feel there
needs to be consistency to get through this crisis and that he is
probably in the best position to do that."

Samaranch has been in power since 1980 and plans to stay until his
term ends in 2001. He will put his leadership to a vote of confidence
at a special IOC assembly March 17-18. IOC members will also vote on
proposals to change the process for selecting host cities and expel
members implicated in the Salt Lake case.

The Sydney Morning Herald, whose parent company is a local partner of
the 2000 Olympics, said Thursday that Samaranch "must carry the
ultimate responsibility for crisis that is engulfing the Olympic
movement. He is not an answer to the problem. He represents the problem."

Meantime, the proposed anti-doping agency will be discussed again at a
meeting with sports and government leaders this spring.

The conference agreed to set up the agency, but details on the
structure, mission and financing were put off for up to three months.
Officials said the goal is to have the agency up and running before
the Sydney Games.

Banks and other government officials refused to give the IOC a leading
role in the doping agency, which would supervise worldwide drug
testing and policy on an initial $25 million budget.

"The chairing of that independent agency by president Samaranch would
compromise it," Banks, the British Sports Minister, said. "It would
not be independent. We cannot accept that."

Pound said governments could have a 50 percent role in the agency
but would be expected to contribute financially.

The IOC also was forced to allow each sport to ignore a minimum
two-year ban in drug cases where they find "exceptional
circumstances."

Some of the biggest sports, including soccer, cycling and tennis,
argued that a two-year ban for a first offense would never hold up to
challenges under right-to-work laws.

Banks warned that this opened an "enormous loophole."

"This is minimalist and permissive," he said. "It undermines the
two-year ban."

In November, the IOC threatened to expel from the Olympics those
sports that failed to adopt the two-year ban. Thursday's resolution
made no mention of expulsions.

In other developments:

USA Today said the son of IOC member Kim Un-yong of South Korea was
employed by a Utah company, Keystone Communications, at the request of
the Salt Lake bid committee. Kim is among at least three members under
investigation by the IOC.

Mark Tewksbury, the 1992 100-meter breaststroke gold medalist from
Canada, said he was quitting a string of Olympics-related positions
because he had "lost confidence in the leadership" of the games.

In a case going back more than 30 years, Japan's largest newspaper,
Yomiuri, said that Sapporo's bid committee gave $2,800 each to four
IOC members in 1964, apparently to win their votes in an unsuccessful
bid for the 1968 Winter Games. The Japanese city was chosen as the
site for the 1972 Winter Olympics.