Charles Mukora, 83, Sold IOC Vote for $34,000

(ATR) Charles Mukora is remembered in Kenya as an athletics coach who brought glory to the nation with athletes like Kipchoge Keino.

But he also brought disgrace. Mukora was one of a half-dozen IOC members recommended for expulsion in 1999 for taking bribes from the Salt Lake City bid for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.

Mukora died Dec. 27 after a long illness.

He rose to acclaim as a coach for Kenyan athletics teams to the Mexico City and Munich Olympic Games. His most famous charge, Kipchoge Keino, won two gold and one silver medal in those Olympics.

Mukora went on to become president of the Kenya National Olympic Committee in 1989, a post which Keino would succeed Mukora. In 1990 he was elected to the IOC.

Nine years later Mukora was on his way out, resigning his seat after an ad hoc IOC Ethics Commission report called for his expulsion.

Records from Salt Lake City indicated that he had received more than $34,000 in cash from the 2002 bid committee. Mukora insisted that the money was for his foundation and used for sports development.

"I have never been party to any improper dealings in the last 40 years I have been involved as a volunteer in Kenyan sports and sports management or as an IOC member," Mukora said at the time.

"The monies that I am alleged to have received as regards to Salt Lake City were moniespaid toward the establishment of high-altitude training camps in Nanyuki, and I have not used the monies for my personal use or personal purpose," he claimed in the days after the report was published in January 1999.

Despite the denials, Mukora resigned from the IOC, one of six named in the report recommended for expulsion. He said he was complying with a request from then IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch to resign rather than to force a vote at an extraordinary IOC Session called for Lausanne in March 1999.

IOC doyen Richard Pound, who led the ad hoc commission 20 years ago, tells Around the Rings that Mukora may have resigned rather than face additional allegations of improper payments from the Sydney 2000 Olympic bid. Mukora did not appear before the commission.

Mukora also did not attend the extraordinary IOC Session at the Palais de Beaulieu in March 1999. Nine members resigned or were expelled as a result of the meeting, while inquiries against a half dozen more members continued.

The ad hoc commission was formed by Samaranch at the December 1998 Executive Board meeting where the scandal exploded. Along with Pound, future IOC presidents Jacques Rogge and Thomas Bach were named to the group. A permanent Ethics Commission was created by the end of 1999.

The scandal, an unprecedented episode in the annals of the IOC, attracted worldwide media coverage. Hundreds of press credentials were issued for the session, the first of three held in 1999, the one and only time that’s happened.

For more on the career of Mukora in Kenya, a remembrance in Nairobi newspaper The Nation highlights Mukora’s legacy.

Reported by Ed Hula, who covered the three IOC Sessions of 1999..