IOC President: No Minute Silence for Munich Olympic Massacre

"We feel that the opening ceremony is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident," Rogge said. File photo

IOC President Jacques Rogge has rejected calls for a minute's silence for the Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich massacre at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

"We feel that the opening ceremony is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident," Rogge said.

"We feel that we are able to give a very strong homage and remembrance for the athletes within the sphere of the national Olympic committee," he said at a news conference. "We feel that we are going to do exactly the same at the exact place of the killings at the military airport near Munich on the 5th of September, the exact date."

During the second week of the Munich Games, eight members of the Black September militant group penetrated the laxly secured Olympic Village and took Israeli team members hostage.

A day later, all 11 were dead. German police killed five of the eight assassins during a failed rescue attempt and Israeli agents tracked down and killed the others.

United States, Israel and Germany have called on the International Olympic Committee to commemorate the slain Israelis during Friday's ceremony.

"We also pay big attention to recommendations coming either from the political world, or cultural world, or world of enterprise," Rogge said. "And we take then a decision taking into consideration (those recommendations). I will not say that we are necessarily following the advice, but we take it into consideration, yes."

On Sunday morning, a memorial event will be held in east London attended by London Mayor Boris Johnson and Efraim Zinger, head of Israel's Olympic committee.

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