The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City are under threat because of last week's terrorist attacks on the United States, International Olympic Committee (CIO) member Roland Baar of Germany claimed today.
Baar told the daily Berliner Zeitung:"We have to live in fear. I don't just see the next Winter Olympics as under threat but the Games in their entirety."
And the four-time world rowing champion said that he favoured the exclusion from the Olympic Games of countries whose implicatation was proven in the attacks on New York and Washington.
"If it is proved that the Afghan government actively participated then these countries have to be banned from the international political scene. Otherwise the IOC can't remain neutral," said Baar.
"I'm in favour of exclusion but I don't know if my point of view would find majority support. Decisions taken by the IOC in the past have not always been comprehensible," added Baar.
IOC chief Jacques Rogge said immediately after the September 11 attacks that there was no question of cancelling or switching the Winter Olympics. -AFP