Sweden’s Olympic leaders: Taxpayers won’t foot bill for 2026
Keino hands himself over to police in corruption case
STOCKHOLM, Oct 18, (AP): Sweden’s Olympic leaders have tried to assure Stockholm’s newly formed local government that the city’s taxpayers will not be asked to foot the bill for the 2026 Winter Games.
Stockholm’s bid to host the games is at risk after lawmakers in the new coalition running the city highlighted their concerns about spending taxpayer money on the event.
Mats Arjes, chairman of the Swedish Olympic Committee, says “we have not approached the notion of tax-based funding or any financial guarantees whatsoever” for the operating costs of the games. He says the only financial guarantee required would be for “national security,” which was already tax funded.
Stockholm’s bid team says 90 percent of the venues that would be used for the games already exist, and that only a new ice rink and a skiing venue need to be built.
There are two other candidates for the 2026 Olympics: Calgary, Canada, and the combined Italian bid of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. A vote of IOC members is scheduled in June.
Meanwhile, running great Kip Keino handed himself over to police in Kenya on Thursday and is under arrest, set to face charges of corruption and abuse of office that threaten the reputation of one of track and field’s most revered figures.
The 78-year-old Keino, former Kenyan sports minister Hassan Wario and two other former sports ministry officials surrendered to police to meet a 6 am deadline. They are due in court Friday to plead to the charges relating to the misuse of more than half a million dollars meant to fund Kenya’s team at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Keino was president of the Kenyan Olympic committee at the time.
Keino is a two-time Olympic champion, an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee and was one of the first athletes to be inducted into track and field’s half of fame in 2012.
He was the forerunner for generations of Kenyan distance-running champions, winning gold in the 1,500 meters at the 1968 Mexico City Olym- pics.
He is accused of playing a role in the misappropriation of more than $545,000 of government money set aside for Kenyan athletes at the Rio Games two years ago. Keino and six other current and former Olympic and government officials were accused by prosecutors of the embezzlement of more than $200,000 and misuse of more than $300,000.
Relating to the misuse, prosecutors allege the seven wasted more than $150,000 on unused air tickets to Rio, overpaid allowances amounting to nearly $150,000, and incurred tens of thousands of dollars of other expenditure on “unauthorized persons” – people who were not Olympic officials or athletes.
The Daily Nation newspaper in Kenya reported that Keino will be charged with giving his son nearly $25,000 of Team Kenya’s money for an air ticket to Brazil and spending money in Rio. The exact charges against the four who reported to police Thursday morning will be published when they appear in court.
Three other officials, current Olympic committee secretary general Francis Kinyili Paul, Rio team manager Stephen Arap Soi and former sports ministry official Richard Ekai, appeared in court Monday. They were charged with multiple counts of corruption and abuse of office. They pleaded not guilty and were granted bail, with a judge saying the trial of all seven would start Nov 16.
Keino, possibly Kenya’s most respected sportsman, handed himself over to police at about 5:30 am, the Daily Nation reported, to beat the deadline.
Wario is a former member of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cabinet and now the ambassador to Austria, meaning the corruption case reaches upper levels of the government. Ekai, his former sports ministry colleague, was recently appointed Kenyan ambassador to Russia.
Details of a chaotic Kenyan Olympic trip emerged in 2016, with allegations of joy riders being given thousands of dollars in allowances and hundreds of thousands of dollars and equipment meant for Kenyan athletes disappearing.
Despite that, Kenya finished second in the track medals table and had its most successful Olympics.