Dawn-to-dusk

Work at Athens venues in overdrive as IOC visit looms

A worker cuts steel bars at the construction site of the Athens 2004 Media Press Center. AP

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Work at some long-delayed venues for the 2004 Olympics has been boosted to a dawn-to-dusk schedule -- with no weekend break.

It's not just a matter of getting the job done by the opening ceremony or trying to impress the International Olympic Committee, which begins a three-day inspection of Athens' preparations on Wednesday.

Fresh pressure is coming from sports federations demanding that organizers live up to promises to have many venues ready months before the games in order to double check specifications and hold test events.

"We are working as fast as possible," said Vassilis Keramidas, the civil engineer at the planned wrestling and judo hall that straddles the fault line of a deadly 1999 earthquake.

Additional seismic reinforcement is slowing down construction and some project officials doubt whether it will be ready for a wrestling test event scheduled for July 2003.

Such predictions are bound to increase worry at the IOC.

The Greek government -- in charge of all major Olympic works -- believes the planning effort will get more praise than blame from the IOC reviewers. But that's not a sure bet as sports federations grow more nervous about pre-Olympic test events.

"I cannot hide the fact that the sports world still has a number of concerns," said Denis Oswald, chief IOC overseer of Athens' preparations. "These concerns have nothing to do with Greece's ability to stage the Olympic Games, rather the difficulty of doing so in the limited amount of time left before August 2004."

The head 2004 organizer, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, acknowledged the importance of having all venues ready to test events.

"We are pushing things," she told private Skai radio on Friday. "Games without test events are not successful."

Oswald has warned that Athens will be "racing against time right up to August 2004" and cannot afford any "unpleasant surprises" such as earthquakes, labor strikes or finding antiquities.

But that's exactly what has happened at the planned Olympic equestrian center in Marcopoulo, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) southeast of central Athens. Crews have uncovered ancient finds, including what archaeologists believe is a 2,500-year-old shrine to the love goddess Aphrodite that also served as a brothel.

The discovery is not expected to seriously slow the construction. But any more finds on the site could throw the project behind schedule.

At the planned table tennis and rhythmic gymnastics center in the suburb of Galatsi, test events are planned for March 2004. Construction has been slowed by unforeseen rock beds and the target date is in doubt, engineers at the site said.

The biggest possible problems, however, are at the former international airport on the sea coast south of Athens.

Athens planners shifted the canoe and kayak course to the former airfield last year after environmentalists and others protested against the original site north of Athens. Work has yet to begin on the highly technical water courses, which normally go through months of fine-tuning before a major event.

The government, meanwhile, is tiptoeing around any subject that could anger labor unions and further disrupt construction. Proposals to reform Greece's nearly bankrupt pension system have effectively been put on hold until after the Olympics.

The IOC will be briefed on other potential trouble spots, including Athens' struggle to find 60,000 Olympic volunteers and plans to place spectators in private homes because of a severe hotel room shortage.

The IOC team also is likely to seek explanations over a legal challenge by Athens mayor to plans for a suburban light rail system, which is part of attempts to ease the city's chronic traffic chaos during the Games. The suit seeks to block the project because of fears it could actually worsen traffic in some congested areas.

But for Athens' Olympic planners, it's all a matter of perspective. Things have been so much worse that the latest woes seem less worrisome.

The former head of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, sharply lambasted Athens in 2000 for delays that put the games in jeopardy. And as recently as September, Oswald was warning of "alarming delays" before finally lauding Athens for getting on track.

"There are, of course, always some pending issues and some problems that surface on a daily basis and that is natural," said Tilemahos Hitiris, a government spokesman. "In general terms ... the Olympic works are materializing according to the timetables."

 

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