"Let the Games begin" is starting to sound like a fervent prayer in this Greek city, host to this summer's Olympics - that is, if construction is finished.
By ROBERT N. JENKINS
Published March 7, 2004
[Photo: AP]
As of February, Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava’s Athens Olympic stadium (this is a scale model presented in June 2001) was only 72 percent complete.
ATHENS - Among the zillion or so products officially licensed by the Athens Olympic Committee is the "Bop Bag" - a 3-foot-tall, inflatable plastic item bearing the images of the two mascots for this summer's Olympic Games. A couple of pounds of sand are sealed in the bottom of the Bop Bag, so that when it is punched, the Bag returns to an upright position.
I wouldn't be surprised if some frustrated International Olympic Committee executives, having just finished touring the venues in and around the city, are slugging their Bop Bags day and night - because they can't actually bop the Greeks responsible for staging this year's Games.
Only time will tell whether all 24 of the unfinished construction projects will be ready by the Opening Ceremonies on Aug. 13. But that is just 158 days away, and the status of some venues - even the paving and widening of the 26.2-mile route between this capital and Marathon, from which we take the name of the foot race - is uncertain.
Three years of virtual inactivity after Athens was awarded the Games in 1997 caused the IOC to threaten to move the 2004 Games from Greece. That spurred the local committees, but construction problems and delays are plaguing the preparations and angering the IOC bosses.
Nothing has drawn more attention than the extravagant canopy for the suburban stadium that will be the site of opening and closing ceremonies, on Aug. 29, and the track and field events.
Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava was reportedly paid about $2.5-million to design what was seen by many as the signature element - the symbol - of the Olympic Games' first return since 1896 to the nation of their origin.
But the roof, reported as originally costing more than $160-million, has proved to be enormously complex to manufacture and assemble.
The translucent canopy will cover the spectator seats but not all of the performing surface. The roof will be held up by steel cables strung between twin metal arches, each of which is more than 9.5 feet in diameter, nearly 1,000 feet long and more than 200 feet tall.
One complication was that the nearly 270,000 square feet of glass originally planned for the roof had to be replaced with a synthetic glazed material, for safety reasons.
Once completed and erected, the twin arches must be moved on rails dozens of yards toward each other. This is expected to take up to 10 days. Weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds, the arches will be bulkier than anything ever moved by Greek contractors, according to Athens' English-language press.
When the arches are in place, the glazed canopy panels, tinted blue, and their supporting cables must be installed.
While Calatrava boasted that he initially turned in three tons of printed material documenting the construction plans, concern arose that he had not fully taken into account the soil composition at the site of the 22-year-old stadium he is modernizing. Athens suffered a devastating earthquake in 1999 and authorities insisted on digging 450-foot-deep test holes at each of the dome's 28 support sites, to check the granite there.
Last June and again in December, Athens officials and Calatrava announced the stadium, and its roof, would be finished in May. Then, on Feb. 15, Greece's senior minister for the Olympics, Nasos Alevras, pronounced the stadium and roof only 72 percent complete. He put the date for completion as June 30.
Still to be put in place, in addition to the roof, are completed electrical and mechanical systems, security devices and television broadcast equipment.
Yet Alevras said the worst scenario he envisioned was that rehearsal of the complex opening ceremonies could not take place on the actual site, because of late finishing work.
Similarly, the contractor for the aquatic center, at another site, was recently dismissed after announcing he could not complete the roof originally designed. Just this past Monday, officials signed a contract with a Greek swimming federation to create a cover to protect athletes and spectators from average August temperatures in the low 90s.
And, also in February, authorities had to fire the paving contractor who was supposed to widen and resurface the route to be used by the marathon runners. Striking workers had put that project so far behind that the contractor admitted he could not finish in time for the race.
Olympic officials are scurrying to find another contractor.
According to Greek authorities, as of the end of February, 15 Olympic construction projects were completed, 12 more were at least 90 percent done and another dozen are further from completion.
Not finished, for instance, is the rail link between the 3-year-old airport and the city center. By taxi, with little traffic, it is at least a 35-minute drive. (The city's traffic problem is infamous: It can take an hour to go three miles. Local Olympic officials are hoping Athenians will obey new driving restrictions, while spectators and athletes are moved about by buses rented from other nations.)
The tally of construction sites was issued just as the IOC's executive committee toured the venues, some of which are many miles from Athens. Sydney, host of the 2000 Summer Games, was largely finished with all venues a full year in advance. But the lack of progress in Greece caused IOC president Jacques Rogge to issue remarkably downbeat comments.
Whereas such visits typically bring backslapping congratulations, Rogge said on Feb. 27, "If the Athens Games go smoothly, and I repeat, if they go smoothly . . ."
The next day he told a press conference that "It's going to be challenging, but it is feasible . . . Very much has been achieved, much remains to be done."
Clouding things more are today's national elections, considered a toss-up. The concern is that if control of the national government changes political parties, new ministers would be appointed to head agencies involved with the Olympic preparations, probably slowing work further.
Greeks tend to see the glass as half-full. But some longtime residents who have moved to Greece from elsewhere are concerned that waiting until the last minute has created too much stress.
"In Greece, it is always slowly, slowly, until the last time," said Marcello Raffo, a Sicilian who operates an ice cream store in the city of Nafplio.
Added Caroline Littell, an American who has lived in Athens for the past 10 years:
"Don't forget, the Greeks invented the word chaos."
