For Athens, it's a race to the finish
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-22 09:10

There is not a track, or a field, or even any seats, inside Olympic Stadium.

The stadium roof, envisioned as the sparkling architectural symbol of the 2004 Athens Games, is far from completed.

There is no water in the main outdoor swimming pool, where plans for a roof were scrapped a few weeks ago by Greek government officials who said there was no longer time to build one.

And in suburban Nikea, site of the weightlifting hall, thieves made off with thousands of dollars worth of electrical wiring hours after it was brought to the site.

Perhaps, as Greek government and International Olympic Committee officials said Tuesday, all construction will be done by the Aug. 13 opening ceremonies and the Games will be a success. But according to a government report dated April 5, only 15 of 39 venues are completed, prompting a furious construction race that could leave little time to resolve a range of operational and security questions.

"There is no denying that there remains much work to do," Denis Oswald of Switzerland, the International Olympic Committee's chief monitor for the 2004 Games, said Tuesday, "but there is still enough time to ensure the core needs of the Games are properly serviced."

Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, head of the Athens 2004 committee, said, "What's important is the progress is obvious. Everybody can see that."

Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports, which is paying US$793 million for the rights to the Games, said Tuesday that he had no doubt that every venue would be finished.

After visiting Olympic sites and meeting with government and Games officials, he said, however, "they cannot afford a single hour or two off between now and Aug. 13, or they'll leave themselves no margin [for] error in which to truly test the operational readiness of these venues."

Amid the orange mesh construction barriers on many major streets and above the din of jackhammers, officials express hope that these Games, the first Summer Olympics since the Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq, will offer the world a reminder of the ideals traceable to the ancients at Olympia, of brotherhood and peaceful competition through sport.

"Yes, we are the first after 9/11," Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyannis said in an interview. "We know how heavy the responsibility is on our shoulders. We have to succeed. We have to succeed for our values, the values we share with the whole world."

Success here might turn on how it is defined.

Oswald said, "All the elements which are needed, like transportation, the general comfort of the athletes, good television, no electrical breakdowns and all these kinds of elements — all these of course are necessary also to make successful Games.

"At the end, it's, 'What will be the feeling of the athletes?' When they return home, if they have the feeling that they enjoyed wonderful Games, we can consider the Games have been successful."

But these Games might play out before numerous empty seats. Only 1.8 million tickets have been sold of the 5 million tickets available for the Games, organizers say. At least one travel operator in the United States has said that figure is due in part to security concerns.

Athens organizers say tickets for the prime events, such as the opening ceremony, have sold well. Thus, looking at expected ticket revenue, the organizing committee has "achieved 75% of its Olympic tickets sales target," the committee said recently.

Meanwhile, the IOC confirmed in recent days that it was nearing a deal for insurance to cover the cancellation of the Athens Games because of terrorism, earthquakes and other concerns.

The IOC has no plans to cancel the Athens Games, or to move them out of Greece. But cancellation insurance, reportedly for more than $200 million, would be a first for the IOC. It has been in the market for such coverage since 2002, a means "whereby the IOC looks to manage its risk regarding its core business, the Olympic Games," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.

Athens is in this fix because the Greeks essentially wasted three years after being named the host city in 1997. Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who led the winning bid, was brought back to head the organizing committee in 2000 — and the government, which oversees public works and Olympic construction in Greece, set out only then to build dozens of venues.

Construction cost overruns in Athens are now expected to be in the millions, perhaps billions, of dollars.

Infrastructure costs related to the Games had originally been estimated at 4.6 billion euros, about US$5.4 billion at current exchange rates. Shortly after taking over following March 7 elections, the new conservative government announced a review of the figures announced by its predecessor, the long-ruling Socialists.

By cutting it so close, officials say, there is little time to stage test events commonly used to detect problems with systems or personnel at new Olympic venues. At Sydney, Australia, for example, venues were completed and in use a year before the 2000 Summer Games. At the same time, the tight timing could put pressure on the massive security effort, currently budgeted at $820 million.

According to the April 5 report, 13 of the 24 unfinished venues are at least 90% complete.The swimming pool is one of those 13. But the numbers on the newly installed starting blocks don't match the lane numbers on the tiles immediately below.

Another of the 13: the canoe-kayak center. There, an unsightly brown foam sits atop the swirling water.

Meantime, at Olympic Stadium, the seats are still on order. At the Greek national track and field championships in June, the plan is to have 8,000 seats bolted down. The stadium is supposed to seat 70,000. The track is expected to be installed by the end of the month.

Then there's the stadium roof. Designed by famed Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, it appears gossamer-like in design photos, an arched blue-and-white confection of glass and steel.

The western arches are due to be moved into place late this month, the eastern arches in mid-May. The canopy is scheduled to be installed by workers pulling 10-hour shifts.

Only when the roof sections are slid into place can crews then fully undertake all the work on the ground underneath — even work as essential, albeit mundane, as installing toilets for 70,000 fans.

Standing one recent day inside the stadium's south end, amid empty sardine tins, wasted cigarette packs and sticky soda bottles rolling in the breeze, Haris Batsios, 37, a construction manager, said, "A significant part of the job has already been accomplished. A significant part."

Then, in remarks about the roof that could well apply to the entire Athens 2004 scene, he added: "It's a saga. It's an absolute saga."

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