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Barcelona. Juan Antonio Samaranch, a reserved but shrewd deal-maker whose 21-year term as president of the International Olympic Committee was marked by the unprecedented growth of the games and its biggest ethics scandal, died on Wednesday at a hospital. He was 89.

Samaranch, a former diplomat who served as Spanish ambassador in Moscow, led the IOC from 1980 to 2001. He was considered one of the defining presidents for building the IOC into a powerful global organization and firmly establishing the Olympics as a world force.

Samaranch was admitted to the Quiron Hospital in Barcelona on Sunday after experiencing heart trouble.

“If there is a good way to die, I guess it was this way,” his son, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., told the Associated Press. “He had a full life and career.”

IOC president Jacques Rogge will be among the dignitaries attending a special ceremony on Thursday morning before the funeral at Barcelona’s cathedral later that day.

“I cannot find the words to express the distress of the Olympic family,” Rogge said in a statement. “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.”

Small in stature and shy by nature, Samaranch appeared uncomfortable appearing or speaking in public. Behind the scenes, though, he was a skilled and sometimes ruthless operator who could forge consensus in the often fractious Olympic movement and push IOC members to deliver exactly what he wanted.

Samaranch was also a lightning rod for critics, who attacked him for his ties to the Franco era in Spain, his autocratic style and the IOC’s involvement in the Salt Lake City corruption scandal.

Samaranch had been bothered by health problems ever since stepping down nine years ago. He was hospitalized for 11 days in Switzerland with “extreme fatigue” in 2001 after returning from the IOC session in Moscow, where Rogge was elected as his successor.



Associated Press