USOC president refuses to resign
Advertiser News Services
The top leadership of the U.S. Olympic Committee urged USOC president Marty Mankamyer to resign yesterday, blaming her for infighting within the organization and claiming she conspired with a staff member to try and force CEO Lloyd Ward from his job.
The turmoil that has consumed the USOC and attracted the attention of Congress escalated once again when all five USOC vice presidents and two other top officials said Mankamyer should quit.
Mankamyer said she would not step down and called on her fellow elected USOC officials to focus instead on a congressional probe into the USOC and not her leadership.
"It's just a difference in opinion," Mankamyer said late yesterday. "Some of the things that have been said aren't quite accurate, but that's OK."
The officials who want Manka-myer out revealed yesterday that she was privately asked to resign last week and promised that she would. They said, however, that Mankamyer reneged and hasn't returned their phone calls since.
"We believe that president Mankamyer must resign as she promised to do," vice president Bill Stapleton said. "I would ask for her in the interests of America's athletes to resign."
Stapleton was joined by the four other USOC vice presidents — including University of Hawai'i athletic director Herman Frazier — along with Rachel Godino, head of the Athlete's Advisory Council, and Robert Marbut, head of the council of Olympic sports organizations. Stapleton said if Mankamyer didn't resign, they would take the matter to an executive board meeting in February or to the entire USOC board in April.
Mankamyer took over last year when Sandy Baldwin resigned after admitting she lied about her academic credentials.
The USOC said this week it plans an independent investigation of whether Ward tried to help a company with ties to his brother win a contract in the Dominican Republic for the upcoming Pan American Games. The Los Angeles Times also reported that the Justice Department plans to send representatives to the Dominican Republic to investigate the reported deal.
SNOWBOARDING
• World champ killed in avalanche: In the snowboarding world, Craig Kelly was a major star, a pioneer who helped build the sport and wound up dominating it.
Kelly, a four-time world champion and three-time U.S. Open champion, was among seven people killed Monday in a avalanche near Revelstoke, British Columbia.
"I can't think of a bigger loss to the sport and to all of us personally," Jake Burton, founder of Burton Snowboards of Burlington, Vt., said in a release yesterday that confirmed Kelly's death.
Kelly, 36, lived the last two years in Nelson, B.C. He was considered an innovator in the sport. He was a professional rider for 15 years and helped Burton develop snowboards and other products.
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• Vijay Singh, on Michelle Wie, a 13-year-old Punahou student, after both played in the First Hawaiian Bank Pro-Junior Golf Challenge:
"She plays like an 18-year-old. She's going to be a star."
