The former president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, has died at the age of 89. The Spaniard, who was the second longest-serving president in the history of the IOC, retired from the post in 2001 after 21 years at the helm. His achievements in building up the modern Olympics Games are offset by the Salt Lake City corruption scandal when several IOC members accepted bribes in return for their votes.

Jean-Loup Chappelet, a professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration in Lausanne, worked at IOC headquarters alongside Samaranch during the 1980s. WRS reporter Vincent Landon began by asking him about Samaranch, the man:

Three days, three gold medals for Switzerland—enough to put our tiny country at least briefly atop the gold medal chart in Vancouver. Didier Defago won the men’s downhill ski event in 1:54.31 seconds to claim his first Olympic medal—and Switzerland’s first Olympic gold in men’s Alpine skiing since 1988.

And Dario Cologna blew away his competition in the men’s 15 km cross country ski event, finishing 24.6 seconds ahead of the silver medalist from Italy. Cologna, who is third in the World Cup standings, had complained earlier that the course at Whistler was “too easy.” Matthew Leighton is there, and has details on all the happenings on the course and off: