Royal flush at Olympics

Press, 13 September 1988, Page 18

Royal flush at Olympics

NZPA-Reuter Seoul A royal flush of princes and . princesses is about to converge on the Olympic city of Seoul.

Games organisers are standing by to receive 16 members of royal families from around the world who are scheduled to descend on Seoul as spectators or sports administrators.

But the figure is less than the prestige-seeking South Korean organisers had hoped for.

"Some royal family members do not want to be here during the Games because they are scared of terrorism,” said a senior offical of the organising committee’s protocol department.

The most senior of the visitors will be King Carl Gustav, of Sweden, although he will fly home the day before the Games opening ceremony on Saturday in order to attend to constitutional duties connected with Sweden's forthcoming general election.

King Carl Gustav will be visting Seoul primarily to promote the candidacy of the Swedish town of Ostersund which is bidding for the 1994 Winter Games. The Olympic authorities will choose from four candidates on Thursday. Best known of the royal visitors will be Britain’s Princess Royal, a former European three-day event equestrian champion who rode in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Formerly Princess Anne,

she was elected to membership of the International Olympic Committee (1.0. C. during the Winter Games in Calgary in February. Also president of the International Equestrian Federation as well as the British Olympic Association, she will be one of the busiest sports administrators in Seoul. When she takes her seat on the 1.0. C., the Princess Royal will join a posse of princes and princesses who maintain the blue blooded line which has been a feature of the committee since the Olympic movement was founded by Baron Pierre de Coubertin in 1894.

She will sit alongside Princess Nora of Liechtenstein, Prince Albert of Monaco, Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Prince Alexandre de Merode, of Belgium. Her husband, Captain Mark Phillips, a gold medallist at the 1972 Munich Olympics, will ride in the three-day event. But while the Princess Royal will be based at the five-star Shilla Hotel, the 1.0.C.’s headquarters during the Games, Phillips checked into the more spartan Olympic village last Wednesday. Prince Albert competed in the bobsled at the Calgary Winter Games in February. Another hoping to join the elite band of royal Olympic competitors is Princess Christina, daughter of Spain’s King Juan Carlos, who is a reserve for the Spanish yachting team.