The USOC "directed more than $60,000 to support sports
in Africa and Asia in hopes of currying favor" for Salt Lake
City's bid for the 2002 Winter Games, according to Alan
Abrahamson of the L.A. TIMES, who cited an internal USOC
report. The report "reveals publicly for the first time"
that the USOC "underwrote training costs and supplies for
athletes and coaches" in Sudan, Mali, Uganda and Turkey,
which officials believed supported Salt Lake City's bid for
the 2002 Games. The report also says that the committee
distributed "pocket money" monthly to three Sudanese
athletes and a coach over a four-month span in '95. The
report was "prepared" in February by the law firm of Hogan &
Hartson and "turned over" Friday to congressional
investigators "after months of resistance" (L.A. TIMES,
11/14). The AP's Matt Kelley called the report "the most
detailed accounting yet of the USOC's involvement" in the
Salt Lake bid scandal and wrote that it "faults the USOC for
lax oversight of not only Utah organizers but its employees
and volunteers." USOC Dir of Public Affairs Mike Moran: "Our
view of what happened was, it was our own lack of oversight,
which we've taken great pains to correct" (AP, 11/14).