I.O.C. head visits N.Z.

Press, 26 April 1983, Page 52

I.O.C. head visits N.Z.

PA Auckland Juan Antonie Samaranch, the man who is leading a .revolution in the Olympic movement, forsees bigger and better games. As president of the International Olympic Committee he is unconcerned about long held charges of “gigantism,” and speaks of about 10,000 competitors from 140 countries taking part in the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Mr Samaranch was speaking in Auckland cm Sunday night after making the coveted Bronze Olympic Award to the outstanding New Zealand rowing administrator, Don Rowlands., On becoming president of the 1.0. C. at the end of the troubled Moscow Games in 1980, Mr Samaranch promised he would visit all 151 member countries in as short a time as possible. New Zealand is the latest and 107th on the list. Right now the peat concern of the 62-year-old Spaniard is the Los Angeles games.

The 1.0. C. is net prepared to look at the question of South Africa — that country was thrown out in 1970 — until after these Olympics; and then, Mr Samaranch says, the solution must come from Africa. He was sure that Los Angeles could be one of the best games. Mr Samaranch is happy with the modern look that has been given to the games. On accepting office he said in discussing amateurism that the 1.0. C. had to de everything possible to ensure that all athletes had an equal opportunity in Olympic competition. He arrived in Auckland after visiting Oceania countries in the company of Mr Lance Cross, president of the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Associatien. Mr Cress described Mr Samaranch, a former Span-' itit ambassador to the Soviet Union and Mongolia, as the “man who revolutionised the Olympic movement.”