United States Olympic Committee

The Olympics are supposed to promote peace and goodwill among people and countries. But only one day after the U.S. Olympic Committee announced plans to launch a new cable channel dedicated to coverage of Olympic sports, an international controversy has erupted, threatening to scuttle the channel and Chicago's bid to be the host city for the 2016 Summer Games. The International Olympic Committee, the governing body that organizes the Games, on Thursday scolded the U.S.

The U.S. Olympic Committee is the latest major sports organization to dive into the television channel business, announcing Wednesday that it was partnering with cable giant Comcast Corp. to launch the U.S. Olympic Network. "Olympics programming really goes dark for the two years between the Games, and there are many events and compelling stories that are never broadcast," said U.S. Olympic Committee Chief Operating Officer Norman Bellingham.

In a rare challenge to the U.S. Olympic Committee's nominating committee, 15 member organizations combined efforts to place Los Angeles lawyer Michael Lenard on the ballot for president opposite Bill Hybl. Lenard, 41, is a 1984 Olympian in team handball serving his second term as a USOC vice-president.

Athletes aren't the only ones going for the gold this summer. Organizers of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics are hoping to strike gold (500,000 sales) or even platinum (1 million sales) with "The Sound of the Games," an ambitious, five-album collection designed to raise money for, among others, the U.S. Olympic team.

F. Don Miller, the longtime executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee who died this week at 75, had more to do with the precise arrangements for bringing the 1984 Olympics to Los Angeles than the local organizers.

No longer needing to consolidate their efforts against now-defunct Eastern Bloc sports machines, U.S. Olympic Committee members turned on themselves this fall. They were so equally divided that the result of the first contested election for president in the USOC's 102-year history Saturday could have been altered by one voter. "It was like a shot at the buzzer," said Dick Schultz, the USOC's executive director, after the vote by the board of directors.

Dick Schultz, who persuaded athletes and administrators that he can serve each group's interests without compromising the other's, on Friday was voted in as executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee, ending a search that involved more than 125 candidates. Schultz, former director of the NCAA, was unanimously elected by the USOC's executive committee during a daylong special meeting.

In a rare and potentially contentious special session of the U.S. Olympic Committee's executive committee Friday in Boston, President Leroy T. Walker is prepared to endorse Dick Schultz, former NCAA executive director, from among finalists to become the USOC's executive director.

The celebration at U.S. Olympic Committee headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., when Salt Lake City was awarded the 2002 Winter Games on Friday was mixed with a profound sense of relief.

The U.S. Olympic Committee met Saturday to decide the fate of the 1997 U.S. Olympic Festival and came up with a decision. Well, sort of. Officials said a Festival was "not likely" in 1997, but did not rule out the possibility of having one. The Festival had been moved to odd-numbered years because the Winter and Summer Olympics are now on alternating even years. But the size and the cost of the Festival have made it difficult to stage, so the switch was convenient.