IOC Monitors French Probe on Olympic Bids

(ATR) Vice president John Coates tells Around the Rings the IOC will wait for any evidence before considering a probe into possible bribery in the bid race for the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

French judges on Wednesday confirmed they had extended their investigation into corruption in athletics, launched in December, into the bidding processes for the Rio and Tokyo Games. "At this stage we are just making verifications, we cannot prejudge the outcome of the investigation," Franck Charon, a spokesman for the prosecutors told The Associated Press.

"If there’s evidence then they will promptly give it to the ethics commission for investigation," Coates told ATR at Lausanne’s Palace Hotel on Wednesday where the IOC executive board is meeting.

"It was always going to be the case that it was expected to be thorough once it was given to the police," he said of the French probe into bribery and doping cover-ups at the IAAF.

The IOC said it is in "close contact" with French prosecutors. Communications director Mark Adams told a media briefing yesterday that there was "no evidence" of wrongdoing at this stage.

Richard Pound’s WADA report released in December implicated Tokyo 2020 in the IAAF scandal. The footnote in the WADA report suggests ex-IAAF president Lamine Diack, a former IOC member, switched support from Istanbul to Tokyo after Turkey decided against paying a $5 million sponsorship payment to thethe Diamond League or IAAF. Japan paid the sponsorship, according to the report.

In January, the Guardian newspaper reported that leaked emails connected Diack’s son Papa Massata, now banned for life by the IAAF, to alleged "parcels" to be delivered to six IOC members in order to buy votes for the 2016 Games, although it wasn’t confirmed if the parcels were sent.

Tokyo defended its conduct in the bidding and voting processes in January, and again in a statement released to ATR today."Tokyo 2020’s position remains unchanged, and we consider that the allegation is beyond our understanding.

"The Games were awarded to Tokyo because the city presented the best bid," said Tokyo 2020 spokeswoman Hikariko Ono.

Leaders from the Tokyo Olympics are not in Lausanne to brief the IOC executive board. But the issue may have come up in their update this morning in a video conference call. A scheduled press briefing was also taking place at the organizing committee’s HQ in the Japanese capital

Rio 2016 communications director Mario Andrada dismissed allegations of vote-rigging, telling reporters in Lausanne on Tuesday that the city won the bidding contest, beating Madrid by 66 votes to 32, "because it had the best project".

Reported by Mark Bisson

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