Geisha girls wooed IOC in Britain

A JAPANESE delegation from Nagano spent 240m yen (pounds 1m) entertaining Olympic officials in Birmingham, days before it was chosen to host last year's Winter Olympics, according to Japanese newspapers.

The expenses covered the costs of almost 190 visitors from Nagano, include kimono-wearing female attendants who entertained members of the International Olympic Committee in 1991 during five days of parties and receptions at Highbury House, the former home of Neville Chamberlain.

A report in yesterday's Mainichi newspaper, based on notes said to have been leaked by a former member of the bid committee, contradicts claims by Nagano officials that they burnt all the documents relating to the city's successful bid. It says that Y740m was spent by the committee in 1991, most of it in the three months leading up to the final vote in Birmingham in June.

The money was spent on first-class air fares and a week of hotel accommodation for the Japanese delegates. Five million yen went on a private train chartered to take the IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, from Tokyo to Nagano one month before the city's victory.

Apart from its excessive cost, the entertaining violated IOC rules that ban bidding organisations from holding parties during Olympic meetings.

Last week, the Nagano mayor, Tasuku Tsukada, admitted there may have been "excesses" during the city's bidding efforts. "I don't remember the details," he was quoted as saying yesterday. "But [the money spent] was roughly somewhere around there."

Mr Tsukada's has always claimed that the accounts of the bid were burnt after the committee wound up its business in 1992, first on the grounds that they might "embarrass" IOC members who visited Nagano, later because there was "no space" for storing them, and because this was "the Japanese way". Yesterday's revelations will fuel rumours in Nagano that some of the documents may still be hidden somewhere.

Last month, a member of Mr Tsukada's city assembly told The Independent that "astronomical" sums of money had been spent on the bid and that bribes had been paid to IOC members in cash and gifts. He also said that as recently as 14 January, the mayor was intending to burn further documents.

This is denied by Mr Tsukada and supporters of the mayor who were present at the meeting, and no specific allegations of bribery have been proved. But there is growing concern about the extravagant hospitality with which visiting IOC delegates were entertained.

Sixty-two committee members, many of them accompanied by their families, were flown to Japan and whisked around the country at a cost of Y2m-Y3m each. They were entertained by geisha, transported in chartered helicopters and taken on sightseeing tours of the ancient city of Kyoto at the expense of the Nagano bidding committee, which was 40 per cent public funded.

Mr Tsukada hinted last month that Nagano was put under pressure to provide such luxuries. "At the time, we were in a position of getting them to choose us, so it was difficult to refuse the demands of the IOC members," he said

Mystery surrounds a hand-made Japanese sword, which Nagano officials say they gave to Mr Samaranch. The IOC says it has no record of the gift.