IOC Co-Ordinator Dennis Oswald said Athens 2004 has turned up “alarming” delays and said that constant pressure is needed for Greece to be ready on time.
At the end of a three-day IOC inspection visit, Oswald found there were serious delays in venue construction, accommodation, road and transport projects. He said Premier Costas Simitis’ government only began pressing ahead with long-delayed projects after being publicly pressured. “What promoted them to make a number of decisions the last week, or the last two weeks” was due to “a kind of preliminary report of the situation at that time which was rather alarming”.
After the report was drafted Oswald said the government “heard, or they realized where they were late, and they wanted to present a better picture now and it’s why a number of decisions have been made. It’s still work to put that pressure, but obviously, we cannot come every week…the effect would disappear if we would come too often”.
Oswald said the latest review of Athens renewed concerns about whether “dozens of construction projects can be delivered by the final deadlines”.
Problem areas include a lack of accommodation for participants and spectators—nearly all of Athens’ 20,000 hotel rooms are reserved for Olympic officials—and a serious lack of communication between the Athens organizing committee (ATHOC) and the government.
“With even greater collaboration between the Greek government and ATHOC, we believe the Greek people can deliver as promised. We are here to help you, but the national spirit must deliver”, he said.
Oswald also seemed concerned that a political crisis inside the governing Socialist party was slowing down preparations. Oswald said, “in a way I will be happy when this situation is over because we will have in a way a clear situation for the coming months…because of that convention the ministers are more concerned about the convention than the Olympic project”.
Meanwhile Greek Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos tried to assure Oswald that everything would be ready in time. “We must see with accuracy and honestly where we are and what we have to do. Very often we have given optimistic provisions which we were forced to change”. He added, that “our goal is to be consistent with the timeline of delivering the works and we will be much more consistent”.
Organizers indicated that if delays were not overcome, they would also consider moving some venues to the southern seaside area of Hellenikon, site of Athens’ old airport, and use prefabricated materials to construct them.
IOC members said it was time for Greeks to change their attitude if they were to get ahead. Israeli IOC member Alex Gilady said, “the important issue is that we are dealing still with issues of yesterday, and we have to deal with issues of tomorrow”.
