Report: Japan bribed officials for 1998 Games

Salt Lake City couldn't match Nagano's gift-giving.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Japanese boosters lavished millions of dollars on delegates who granted the 1998 Winter Olympics to Nagano, according to a report ordered by the region's governor.
The report from the Nagano Prefecture Investigation Group said the Japanese city provided an "illegitimate and excessive level of hospitality" to members of the International Olympic Committee in vying for the bid.
Many Olympic insiders said Salt Lake City deserved to win that bid but couldn't match Nagano's gift-giving.
The 2002 Olympics went to Salt Lake City, which later dealt with a gift-giving scandal of its own. The two top leaders of Salt Lake's Olympic bid committee were indicted on bribery charges, but a federal judge threw out the case, saying the government had failed to prove bid chief Tom Welch or deputy Dave Johnson had done anything illegal or wrong.
The Nagano report made Salt Lake's favors appear meager by comparison. For example, Nagano boosters left video cameras in hotel rooms as gifts for IOC members on the eve of the vote for the 1998 games; Salt Lake left disposable cameras.
During the next bid campaign, Salt Lake doled out more than $1 million in cash, first-class travel, shopping sprees and gifts including a Rolex watch, a shotgun and a hunting dog.
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