Samaranch for greater women's presence in sports administration

International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who made the Olympic Games a great money spinner, says the one task he could not complete was greater women's participation in the administration of sports.

"Women are taking active part in sports. As many as 40 per cent of the competitors in the Sydney Games last September were women. We need to have more and more women on the administrative side of sports," Samaranch, who lays down office in July after a 21-year reign at the helm of the IOC, said at a press conference, in Delhi, on Friday night.

On his way back to Lausanne (Switzerland) after visiting Bhutan, Samaranch handed over the Olympic Order -- awarded posthumously to Indian sports journalist Sushil Jain -- to Arun Kumar Jain, his son, at a dinner hosted by Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi.

Sushil Jain, who wrote on sports in Hindi, is the second Indian media person to be honoured with the Olympic Order, the first being the well-known broadcaster Jasdev Singh.

Samaranch, who will lay down office at Moscow on July 16, the same city and date, when he took over in 1980, said his trip to Thimpu was part of his programme of visiting every member-country of the IOC, and Bhutan was the 191st out of the 199 members.

Asked what chances developing countries have of hosting the Olympic Games what with their becoming big budget ventures, Samaranch said a host country hardly needs to spend anything on the Games except on infrastructure, as the income from sponsorships and sale of television rights takes care of the rest.

As much as half of the earnings from television rights, he said, go to the host city; 10 per cent each to the international federations and IOC solidarity programme, and the rest to the coffers of the apex sports body, which in turn ploughs the money back into development and popularization of sports all over the world.

Clarifying that the system is not loaded against the less developed countries, the IOC chief said since 1999, it was not compulsory that a country hosting Olympic Games should have two members in the august body.

Samaranch, who on his first visit to this country in 1982, was impressed with the way the Asian Games was organised in New Delhi, expressed confidence that first Afro-Asian Games would also be successfully hosted in Delhi, in November this year.

Considering this country's track record in organising big events, Samaranch expressed the hope that India, with its billion population, would one day host the Olympic Games.

"But, before that you must not only have a good organisational set-up but you must field a very, very strong team," he said.