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OLYMPICS TO ALLOW PROS IN 3 SPORTS
The executive board of the International Olympic Committee voted yesterday to allow professional tennis, ice hockey and soccer players under the age of 23 to compete in the 1988 Winter and Summer Games.
In announcing the decision by the nine-member board following four days of meetings in Calgary, Alberta, the site of the 1988 Winter Games, I.O.C. President Juan Antonio Samaranch said the rule was experimental,
''This decision is only for 1988,'' he said. ''After 1988 we will see, The Olympic movement must go with the times.''
If the decision is ratified at the I.O.C.'s annual meeting in East Berlin in June, as it is expected to be, it would theoretically clear the way for such young National Hockey League stars as Mario Lemieux, the Canadian-born Pittsburgh Penguin rookie and Pat LaFontaine, the Islanders' American-born rookie, to compete at the 1988 Winter Games.
It could also allow such young tennis professionals as Aaron Krickstein, Andrea Jaeger and Kathy Rinaldi of the United States, Carling Bassett of Canada and Pat Cash of Australia to compete for their contries at the Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea, where tennis is scheduled to become an official Olympic event following its appearance as a demonstration sport at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
The international federations governing hockey, soccer and tennis had asked for the rule, which would allow professionals who have not reached their 23d birthday by the start of the Winter Games, Feb. 13, 1988, to compete.
Walter Troger, the I.O.C. sports director, said that the new rule would be reviewed after the 1988 Games and might be extended to other sports if their international federations requested it.
In voting to allow professionals to compete, the executive board addressed one of the thorniest issues that has confronted Olympic officials in recent years, the definition of an amateur.
The issue erupted into controversy at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, when three countries sought unsuccessfully to use five players who had played briefly in the N.H.L. on the ground that some hockey players were being allowed to compete even though they had signed professional contracts with European leagues.
Unlike the N.H.L., however, the European professional leagues are members of the International Ice Hockey Federation, the sport's world governing body, which granted waivers to some of its member professionals but refused to extend the waivers to N.H.L. players.
In voting to allow professionals, but only young professionals, to compete in the Olympics, the executive board adopted an approach that had been used for tennis at the 1984 Games when an age limit of 20 applied to both amateur and professional tennis players. The higher age limit of 23 adopted yesterday at the 1988 Games followed the recommendations of the three federations governing the respective sports.
Although the ruling would make many young N.H.L. stars eligible for the 1988 Games, they would still need permission from their professional clubs to join Olympic teams. Since the Winter Games will be held during the middle of the N.H.L. season, that seemed unlikely, especially since most Olympic teams train together for months before the Olympics.
''I'd be surprised if any player on a regular roster would play in the 1988 Olympics,'' said John Ziegler, the president of the National Hockey League. ''Players will be expected to honor their N.H.L. contracts.''
Jim Henderson, a spokesman for the North American Soccer League, said that no active players in the N.A.S.L. or the Major Indoor Soccer League would be affected by the rule since none were young enough to meet the the age limit in 1988.
Jack Kelly, the president of the United States Olympic Committee, said he was ''rather pleased,'' with the new rule allowing professionals to compete in the Olympics, but didn't understand why an age limit was imposed.
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