Olympic Gun Deal Nixed by IOC

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) â€” Products from condoms to life insurance to beer and wine are endorsed by the Olympic Games. <br><br>But an official Olympic handgun? No way, said the IOC. <br><br>The International

Friday, November 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) â€” Products from condoms to life insurance to beer and wine are endorsed by the Olympic Games.

But an official Olympic handgun? No way, said the IOC.

The International Olympic Committee shot down the proposal from Salt Lake City organizers, saying there never was and never will be an Olympic gun.

``It was my idea,'' said Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard, who spent two years lining up Swiss gun maker SIG Sauer and the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.

SIG was willing to give away commemorative sidearms to police officers who will provide security for the 2002 Winter Games. The company made two prototypes, a pair of .40-caliber semiautomatic pistols engraved with the Olympic rings and gold script, that sit in Kennard's vault.

Kennard was anxious to reward law enforcement officers who will work long hours without leave or vacation during the Winter Olympics.

But the Olympic gun was muzzled by the IOC last May, just as a sheriff's deputy was ready to board a plane to deliver a negotiated agreement to SIG's New Hampshire factory.

Kennard still doesn't understand why the IOC nixed the deal. ``It doesn't make any sense to me. Look at all the products the IOC allows the rings on,'' he said.

But IOC spokesman Franklin Servan-Schreiber says guns and world peace don't mix. ``The rest of the world would not understand, nor accept, the idea of a firearm with the Olympic rings on it,'' he said.

The U.S. Olympic Committee wasn't consulted on Salt Lake's gun deal and wouldn't have approved, either, said spokesman Mike Moran.

``The USOC avoids issues like that,'' Moran said. ``The American public supports us generously, and handguns are a political issue we would want to avoid.''

For the Olympic Games, three products are taboo: guns, tobacco and hard liquor. Guns are forbidden even though rifles are used in Olympic biathlon and skeet competitions.

But guns also symbolize Salt Lake City's vote-buying scandal. Organizers gave away Browning Arms Co. pistols, rifles and shotguns to IOC members, including IOC president Antonio Samaranch.

Federal prosecutors didn't bother citing these gifts in the bribery indictment of Salt Lake City bid executives Tom Welch and Dave Johnson because they were more interested in cash stuffed in IOC members' bank accounts.

Kennard says the SIG licensing deal called for a minimum of $150,000 in royalties to go to the Salt Lake City Games.

SLOC president Mitt Romney inherited the gun proposal in 1999 when he took over the organizing committee. Kennard's idea originally had Welch and Johnson's blessing.

When Romney got around to pitching the gun deal to the IOC, it flatly turned him down, and Romney didn't push it.

As part of the deal, SIG's New Hampshire factory hoped to sell more than 5,000 commemorative sidearms to law enforcement officers or agencies.

Salt Lake would have collected $30 on each gun sale. In a deal sweetener, it also would have received 120 tactical rifles for SWAT teams.

``I'm frustrated and disappointed,'' Kennard said. ``But I dropped it.''

Welch would understand. An avid big-game hunter, he had to get a court order on Wednesday allowing him to use a borrowed rifle for a week at a Canadian lodge where he's on vacation.

Welch had to remove his own firearms from his California and Utah houses as a condition of his release on Olympic bribery charges. A trial is set for June.