IOC asked to take action over women: Olympic Games

A women's group yesterday called on the International Olympic Committee to apply the same sanctions against countries that discriminate against women in sport as were imposed on apartheid South Africa.

The Atlanta/Sydney Plus Group, organised to pressure the IOC to end discrimination in the Olympic movement on basis of sex, is in Geneva to take its cause to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

A spokesman for the group said the IOC, based in Lausanne, was violating its own charter by not acting.

``The Olympics are ruled only by the Olympic charter which excludes any form of discrimination," the spokeswoman, Linda Weil-Curiel of France, said. "If countries don't want to compete then they shouldn't send anyone - men or women.

``Why should men be allowed to participate when women aren't? This is what we ask the IOC, to be courageous and take a stand," she added.