Primo Nebiolo

The International Amateur Athletics Federation, which governs track and field, re-elected Italy's Primo Nebiolo to another four-year term as president.

Primo Nebiolo was remembered Tuesday as one of the century's great sports leaders during a memorial at a tiny stadium in Rome--the sort of place track and field meets were held before he invigorated the sport. About 300 people attended the 45-minute public service at Marmi Stadium, an arena with white marble stands surrounded by 53 Romanesque statues of athletes. IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch bestowed upon Nebiolo the IOC's highest honor, the Gold Olympic Order.

Primo Nebiolo, head of the International Amateur Athletics Federation, said he expected that South Africa's readmittance to international sports will be made official at an IAAF meeting in Toronto.

The last time I interviewed Primo Nebiolo, the powerful president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, I asked him if he was dying. The question wasn't as impertinent as it sounds because the British press for weeks had been reporting on his imminent demise, which, they alleged, would result from a losing battle with prostate cancer. His response to them was to ban British newspapers from IAAF headquarters in Monte Carlo.

Leaders of the International Olympic Committee voted to allow pro tennis players to continue in the Games, a reinforcement after pro eligibility was granted on an experimental basis in 1988. Also in the meeting at Barcelona, Spain, Primo Nebiolo, who is being investigated in an Italian business scandal, failed to win reelection as president of the group of summer Olympic sports organizations, even though he was unopposed. Delegates to the annual meeting of the Assn. of Summer Olympic International Federations, concerned with Nebiolo's tarnished image, voted to postpone the election until a meeting in October.

Primo Nebiolo, president of track and field's international governing body, received his long-sought appointment to the International Olympic Committee on Saturday at Lausanne, Switzerland. IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch made the announcement at a council meeting of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which Nebiolo heads. "It is necessary to strengthen still further the existing close ties between the IAAF and the IOC," an IOC statement said.

Primo Nebiolo resigned Saturday as chairman of Italy's track federation after a series of scandals and subsequent criticism of his leadership. Federation spokesman Augusto Frasca said the resignation was expected and would take effect Feb. 8. Nebiolo, 64, is also president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, track and field's world governing body. His resignation had no immediate effect on that position.

Primo Nebiolo will be elected without opposition today or Thursday to a fourth term as the international track and field federation's president, one of sport's most powerful positions. But he has been no match for the Swedish media, which have battered him to the extent that he is threatening to return home to Italy even before the World Championships begin Friday.

Primo Nebiolo will be elected without opposition today or Thursday to a fourth term as the international track and field federation's president, one of sport's most powerful positions. But he has been no match for the Swedish media, which have battered him to the extent that he is threatening to return home to Italy even before the World Championships begin Friday.

With the 1996 Summer Olympics still nearly two years away, it is curious that the schedules for competition in all sports but the flagship event, track and field, have been approved. "Somebody had to be last, I guess," said Amadeo Francis of Puerto Rico, a member of track's international federation committee in charge of scheduling. If only it were that simple.

When Butch Reynolds passed the baton to Michael Johnson after the third leg of the 1,600-meter relay late Sunday afternoon at Gottlieb Daimler Stadium, only two questions remained in track and field's World Championships. Would Johnson run the final 400 meters fast enough to give the U.S. team the world record?

There probably are no more than three or four people who know whether quarter-miler Butch Reynolds ever used an anabolic steroid, but the fact is that the issue has become so obscured by legal and political machinations that it has almost become forgotten. One thing clear from the beginning of this runaway train of a story is that there were several procedural violations in the drug test on Aug.

After initially dismissing "The Lords of the Rings," a book recently published in Great Britain that takes a critical look at the International Olympic Committee, as "unimportant, maybe also malicious and full of mistakes," IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch has taken legal action. He filed a criminal complaint last week in Switzerland, accusing British authors Andrew Jennings and Vyv Simson of libel.

Primo Nebiolo, head of the International Amateur Athletics Federation, said he expected that South Africa's readmittance to international sports will be made official at an IAAF meeting in Toronto.

When Butch Reynolds passed the baton to Michael Johnson after the third leg of the 1,600-meter relay late Sunday afternoon at Gottlieb Daimler Stadium, only two questions remained in track and field's World Championships. Would Johnson run the final 400 meters fast enough to give the U.S. team the world record?

Primo Nebiolo was remembered Tuesday as one of the century's great sports leaders during a memorial at a tiny stadium in Rome--the sort of place track and field meets were held before he invigorated the sport. About 300 people attended the 45-minute public service at Marmi Stadium, an arena with white marble stands surrounded by 53 Romanesque statues of athletes. IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch bestowed upon Nebiolo the IOC's highest honor, the Gold Olympic Order.

Primo Nebiolo, president of track and field's international governing body, received his long-sought appointment to the International Olympic Committee on Saturday at Lausanne, Switzerland. IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch made the announcement at a council meeting of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which Nebiolo heads. "It is necessary to strengthen still further the existing close ties between the IAAF and the IOC," an IOC statement said.

In an action at least theoretically designed to add flexibility to the selection process, the International Olympic Committee voted Wednesday in La Lechere, France, to allow its president to choose two at-large members at his discretion without regard to country. Previously, no country was allowed more than two representatives in the 93-member IOC. "We knew we had to find some way around our procedures," said Richard Pound, a former IOC vice president from Canada.