Shamateurism

Amid all the pomp at Sapporo last week, one troubling circumstance lingered on: the usual controversy over "shamateurism." Once again Avery Brundage, the crusty old president of the International Olympic Committee, railed against the evils of commercialism. And once more the Federation Internationale de Ski (F.I.S.) was unimpressed. This time, though, Brundage seemed more intent than ever on disqualifying most of the world's top skiers for violating the I.O.C. rule against endorsing equipment. Armed with a stack of incriminating ads, he thundered: "When the skiers allow their photographs or their names to be used to promote ski products, they become agents of the industries. To let them compete would change the games to a competition between industrialists, not between sportsmen. If the Olympics are not honest, let them come to an end."

The F.I.S. believes that the 84-year-old Brundage is out of step with the times. Says F.I.S. President Marc Holder: "Avery no longer wants to listen to reasonable arguments. He just has an idee fixe against skiing as an Olympic sport." Though Brundage rightly charges that the European skiers are the most blatant abusers of the amateur code, other Olympians have long been taking money under the table from sponsors. Rife with hypocrisy and ill-feeling, the present controversy is not likely to be resolved until the very eve of the games. If Brundage does not back down as he did in the 1968 games, one possible but sad compromise would be to stage the skiing events as F.I.S. world championships without Olympic sanction. At week's end, as the F.I.S. grumbled and the Japanese fidgeted, Brundage gave no indication of which way he was leaning.

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