Primo Nebiolo was accused on Sunday of talking up the World Student Games in order to fuel Rome's bid for the 2004 Olympics. But a spokesman for the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), which Nebiolo heads, responded by saying the Italian lawyer had consistently sought to keep the student games out of the ferociously competitive Olympic bidding process.

Mayor of Palermo Leoluca Orlando, a key player in the move to bring the games to Sicily, said Nebiolo had set unrealistic targets for the cash-strapped games which had inevitably not been reached.

"Nebiolo was wrong to raise expectations about the World Student Games so high," Orlando told a news conference. "It was a mistake because they [the Student Games and the Olympics] are two different things. He opened the way for the enemies of the Rome bid to have a field day at our expense."

The IOC will announce the winner of the Olympic bidding process at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on September 5th. The five bidding cities are: Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Rome and Stockholm.