LAUSANNE, Switzerland: Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), sent wishes on Saturday to President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for a successful fourth summit.
“In this Olympic year 1988, the whole worked shares our wish that your fourth historic meeting will advance the cause of world peace, an IOC Communique quoted the Spaniard as saying.
Samaranch, who travels to Seoul on Monday for his final visit before the ‘Summer Games open in September? Has said in recent months that improved superpower relations have increased participation in the Olympics,
A record total of 161 nations have accepted invitations to the Seoul Games — bringing U.S. and Soviet summer athletes into Olympic competition for the first time since 1976.
Washington led a 60nation boycott of the Moscow Olympics kin 1980 in protest at the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Moscow spearheaded a 15state Communist Bloc boycott of the Los Angeles Summer Games in 1984, citing security concerns.
North Korea is still demanding to cohost the Seoul Games, although it rejected as insufficient the IOC’s “final offer” for Pyongyang to host men’s and women’s archery, men’s and women’s table tennis, women’s volleyball, men’s road cycling and a qualifying group round of the soccer tournament.
The IOC has ruled out cohosting at this late stage, but said the door was still open for North Korean athletes to participate, despite the passing of the formal acceptance deadline last January.
TOKYO, Japan: North Korean on Monday demanded an apology from Tokyo for an incident in which a North Korean team walked out of the Asian table tennis championships in Japan earlier this month.
A foreign ministry spokesman, quoted by the North Korean Central News Agency, said: “The Japanese government authorities must apologize to us for the incident”.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 3, 1988
