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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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