Former IOC president Samaranch leaves hospital

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former president of the International Olympic Committee, was released from hospital yesterday after suffering from "extreme fatigue''.

''He is feeling much better but he will have to continue resting,'' the IOC director-general, Francois Carrard, said. ''He is in excellent spirits and he seems to be getting better everyday.'' Samaranch was taken to a hospital in Lausanne last week – on his 81st birthday – shortly after returning from an IOC meeting in Moscow.

Samaranch was unable to attend a football match in his honour last night between Real Madrid and Lausanne Sport, an occasion used by the city of Lausanne to inaugurate the newly renovated Samaranch Stadium.

''He won't go to the match tonight,'' Carrard said before the game ''He is still too tired. It is too hot. There's a storm brewing. He just got out of hospital, and there would be too much pressure from the media.

"He really wanted to go but his doctors said, 'You never listen to us, you always do too much.' So he is listening to the cautious advice of his doctors for a change.''

The refurbished stadium – formerly called Stade de Vidy – is close to IOC headquarters. Samaranch was represented by his son Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr.

Samaranch also missed last week's key ceremony in Lausanne when Belgium's Jacques Rogge officially took over as IOC president. After his 21 years in charge, Samaranch was appointed IOC honorary life president.

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