Olympic Games: Yugoslavia are cleared to compete by IOC

THE International Olympic Committee announced yesterday that Yugoslavia would compete at this month's Barcelona Games despite a United Nations sporting embargo. The IOC director-general, Francois Carrard, said Yugoslav Olympic official had agreed to their athletes competing as the 'Independent Team' under the Olympic flag.

Yugoslavia's National Olympic Committee voted to accept the IOC formula at a meeting in Belgrade earlier in the day and said they would be giving the IOC a list of 110 athletes they wanted to send to the Games. Their participation, however, looked in doubt when hours after the meeting they had still not given the IOC written confirmation of their decision.

Carrard said the IOC had spent the last month working to ensure that Yugoslav athletes did not miss out on the Games for political reasons. 'This was an intrusion of politics into sport which constituted a threat. We fought against it and we were very happy,' he said.

In a reference to the British Prime Minister, John Major, and other Western leaders, Carrard said the IOC had won 'support at the highest level'.