USOC likely to be denied

GUATEMALA CITY – Giving may prove easier than getting for the United States Olympic Committee, which is doing everything possible to regain lost footing in international Olympic affairs.

Thursday it gave full support to getting the new Youth Olympic Games off the ground. Friday it announced a substantial clothing gift to Darfur refugees as part of a joint project between the International Olympic Committee and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Today the USOC seems unlikely to get what it wants: a place in the IOC leadership.

Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles, who a decade ago became the first female IOC vice president, is a definite underdog in the election for the lone vacancy on the 15-member executive board. Other candidates are IOC marketing commission chairman Gerhard Heiberg of Norway, International Aquatics Federation President Mustapha Larfaoui of Algeria and Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr. of Spain, son of the former IOC president.

The United States had an executive board position all but nine months from 1989 through 2006, when DeFrantz withdrew her board candidacy in favor of countryman Jim Easton. He lost by 21 votes.

That wasn’t as bad as DeFrantz’s defeat during the 2001 IOC presidential election. Last in a five-person field, she received only nine of 107 votes and attributed it to having received no USOC support.