OLYMPIC GAMES DEATH OF JUAN ANTONIO SAMARANCH:A RESPECTED but controversial figure as president of the International Olympic Committee from 1980 to 2001, Juan Antonio Samaranch remained a friend to Irish Olympism until his death yesterday, said Pat Hickey, president of the Olympic Council of Ireland.

Hickey, who was trying to secure passage to Barcelona last night to represent the OCI and European Olympic Committee, a conglomerate of countries of which he is president, at Samaranch’s funeral today said the 89-year-old was a regular visitor to Ireland and a close friend of the IOC president who preceded him, Ireland’s Lord Killanin.

Samaranch was admitted to Quiron hospital in Barcelona on Sunday suffering from severe heart trouble and died yesterday morning.

A shrewd deal maker, his 21-year term as head of the IOC was marked by unprecedented growth of the movement but also the biggest ethics scandals the IOC ever had to face.

“He was a true friend of Ireland,” said Hickey. “He enjoyed his many visits here, both on holiday and on business with the IOC. He was a very close friend of former IOC president Lord Killanin and when Lord Killanin was seriously ill he arranged to have superb nursing care facilities for him in Ireland.”

Behind the scenes Samaranch was a skilled and sometimes ruthless operator, who was able to forge consensus in the often fractious Olympic movement and push IOC members to deliver just what he wanted. But he was also a lightning rod for critics of the movement, who attacked him for his ties to the Franco fascist era in Spain, his autocratic style of governance as well as the IOC’s involvement in the Salt Lake City corruption scandal, which resulted in the expulsion of six IOC members and the resignation of four others.

His two decades in power also spanned some of the most eventful years in IOC history and involved the end of amateurism, the explosion of commercialism, immense growth in the popularity of the Olympic Games and also the corrosive effect of a succession of doping scandals, which, before systematic drug testing became more effective, threatened the credibility of the games.

Samaranch was also accused of the over-commercialisation of the games and of perpetuating the IOC as a private club for a pampered elite.

“His achievements in the Olympic movement were immense,” added Hickey. “Irish sport and the Olympic Council of Ireland continue to benefit from sponsorship arrangements that he set in place during his period as president of the IOC. The Olympic movement in Ireland has lost a champion and a supporter.”

Samaranch suffered from health problems since he stepped aside nine years ago for Jacques Rogge. He retired as the second longest serving president in the history of the IOC, with only Pierre de Coubertin, the French aristocrat who founded the modern Olympics, serving a longer term of 29 years between 1896 and 1925.

“He came to Ireland several times, at least twice when he was president and at least another two times when he came on holiday,” said an Irish Olympic official. “He came over to see Lord Killanin privately, just nipping in from Barcelona to go and see him and then going home again.

“He was very active in Beijing and in Lausanne (IOC headquarters) at various meetings and it was really only in the last years that his health started to visibly decline.”

Of all the tributes yesterday, Dick Pound, the straight-talking Canadian Lawyer and IOC member who came third in the last presidential election won by Rogge, placed Samaranch in context. Pound called him one of the three great defining presidents in Olympic history.

“De Coubertin to get it going, Brundage (Avery) to hold it together through a very difficult period, and Samaranch to bring it from the kitchen table to the world stage,” said Pound.

“He took a very badly fragmented, disorganised and impecunious organisation and built it into a universal, united and financially and politically independent organisation that has credibility, not only in the world of sport but also in political circles. That’s an enormous achievement to accomplish in 20 years.”