Former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch Dies

21 April 2010

This 02 Oct 2009 file photo shows Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former IOC president, speaking during the Madrid 2016 bid presentation during the 121st International Olympic Committee session at the Bella Center in Copenhagen

Former International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch has died at age 89 of a heart ailment. Samaranch transformed the Olympic Games into a major commercial enterprise and put them on the global map, but the era of his presidency was also dogged by controversy.

Juan Antonio Samaranch was president of the IOC from 1980 until 2001.

Canadian IOC member Richard Pound worked with him throughout those 21 years.

"I think he will go down in history as one of the three great presidents certainly in the first 100 or so years of the IOC," said Pound. "There was de Coubertin who started the whole thing, there was Avery Brundage who saved it during the cold war era, and Samaranch who got it, if you like, from the 19th century into the 21st century."

Samaranch is considered the driving force behind turning the Olympic Games into a popular, commercial, and global event.

When he came to power the IOC was in bad shape financially and politically. The 1976 Games had left Montreal with a billion-dollar debt and the games were tarnished by Cold War boycotts of the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles games.