Juan Antonio Samaranch Dies: Former Olympic, IOC Chief Dead

by Sudha Krishna | April 21, 2010 at 07:40 am

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Juan Antonio Samaranch Dead At 89: From Fascist Under Franco To Olympic Oligarch

For 21 years Juan Antonia Samaranch presided over the International Olympic Committee (IOC) taking the Olympics through its troubled times in the 1970s (as Vice President), through its profitable days in the 1980s (he became President in 1980) and the scandal plagued 1990s, finally retiring in 2001. A seemingly remarkable achievement for a minister under Franco's Fascist Spain.

The current head of the IOC Jacque Rogge who replaced Samaranch in 2001 said.

"I am personally deeply saddened by the death of the man who built up the Olympic Games of the modern era, a man who inspired me and whose knowledge of sport was truly exceptional.

Juan Antonia Samaranch took over as head of the IOC in 1980 after the financial fiasco of the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. He reorganized the structure of the IOC, securing lucrative corporate sponsorship deals, particularly multi million dollar TV contracts, and of course professionalizing a traditionally amateur event.

The doping scandals of the Seoul Olympics in 1988, the era of NBA and NHL players, the Olympics is the most coveted and protected international brand all occurred under firm grip of Samaranch.

And the Olympics certainly prospered from near bankruptcy in 1976, when it looked like cities were no longer interested in the Olympics, to the frenzied bidding we see now for the privilege of hosting the Olympic games - the Olympics have indeed be transformed under Samaranch's watch.

Samaranch was also a controversial figure. An unrepentant fascist according to his critics, particularly the British journalist Andrew Jennings who investigative reporting revealed bribery, vote buying, cronyism, and a pampered international elite who were being feted by prospective host cities - a corrupt bidding process.

Samaranch did, in his last years in the organisation, take steps to curb some of these excesses, but it is argued that Samaranch must have been aware of the culture for much of his reign and only acted after media pressure. Much of resulting from the scandels involving the Salt Lake City Winter Games of 2002.

It was Juan Antonio Samaranch's early years that drew the most ire from Jennings By way of background Fascist rule in Spain started before World War Two and continued after the war, until the mid 1970s. Samaranch, a Franco loyalist rose the ranks to become Minister of Sport under the dictator.

This picture of Samaranch, fourth from right, doing his favourite right-arm exercise (pdf) was taken in 1974 at a fascist ceremony in Barcelona. The Second World War had ended nearly 30 years earlier but Samaranch loved those Nazi rituals. When this picture was taken he was a vice-president of the IOC. Six years later he became President.

But he will likely be remembered for his more recent success in revitalizing the Olympic movement, albeit with an autocratic hand. He presided over the first profitable Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, Samaranch brought the Olympics to his hometown of Barcelona in 1992 and when he stepped down in 2001 the Olympic coffers were overflowing.

Olympic gold medalist Sebastian Coe, now heading up the London Olympic Organizing committee said.

"A man that challenged us all to fight for sport, its primacy and its autonomy, a fight he led fearlessly from the front creating an extraordinary sporting movement that reaches millions of people around the world," Coe said.

"He was quite simply the most intuitive leader I have ever met."

Juan Antonio Samaranch's official cause of death was heart failure.