Leading actors cool on stage

This is Pat Hickey's forum. Television cameras, radio and even the germ of a media scrum from the photographers as he strode into the lobby of Jury's Hotel. Dapper, smiling and unwaveringly confident, Hickey has seen International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch strut his stuff on bigger stages than this. Something has rubbed off.

Richard Burrows, tall and broad as a ship's bow, also worked the crowd with the selfassurance of a man who understood the odds were stacked against him, but willing to live with defeat if it came.

"I'm not apprehensive. I'm still quite confident," he said. "I think the points were made quite well. With a possible 10vote advantage it's a lot of ground to make up, but we got a very good feeling from the federations."

If there was tension no one was showing it. Burrows had seen takeover bids as a captain of industry in Irish Distillers, and Hickey has climbed the greasy pole of the IOC to the level of vice-president of the European association. Neither are novices.

As an aperitif there were some small exchanges. When executive committee member Pedar Casey was asked about the lack of professionalism in the OCI, as stated in the Sydney review report, he stepped on a mine.

"These are probably the whims of some of the athletes," he said.

Olympic javelin thrower and bobsleigh delegate Terry McHugh took umbrage and marked his cards.

"Could we see all the accreditations given out during the Games, could they be made public," asked canoeing representative Brendan O'Connell. "No," said Dermot Sherlock, closing the door on a burning issue with athletes who could not get their family and friends into the events at which they were competing.

It was basketball which took the biggest hit in the first act. Finn Ahern, the president, was told he could not vote. The senior delegate, Scott McCarthy, could not turn up to the meeting due to personal reasons. Tough, said Hickey.

But it wasn't made clear there was a sequence of seniority with the basketball delegates, said Ahern, who is the president of the Irish Basketball Association. Tough, said Hickey.

So what did it all mean? Just that a Burrows vote probably went west. Basketball would have to vote through Mary Baneham, the second most senior delegate and a Hickey supporter. The sport was divided and Hickey conquered. One-nil and the main vote hadn't even begun.

And so it continued: sniping, resolutions, Articles of Association, the funding. A whole gamut of gripes and grievances and interpretations of the rules.