Greek Olympic Games head into crisis

[DuctapeFatwa]

Greek Olympic preparations were in crisis on Wednesday after revelations the main stadium would not be ready until less than a month before the Games start and disintegration of political party unit supporting the event.

With a storm also gathering about calling in NATO forces to protect the Games from possible attacks, celebration of the modern homecoming of the Olympics in August after more than a century was increasingly pushed into the background. The trigger for the crisis -- a week before the lighting of the Olympic flame at the ancient home of the Olympics in Olympia on March 25 -- was the election of a conservative government 10 days ago which ended a decade of socialist rule and exposed long suspected delays in preparations.

Al Qaeda links to train bombings in Madrid also added strains to International Olympic Committee (IOC) demands for "tough decisions" in the next two weeks to ensure the Games went ahead at standards the world had come to expect.

In a sign of how far behind Greece has fallen, the builder of the main stadium said the venue would not be ready until July 20 -- three weeks before the August 13 opening ceremony. Train and tram projects to help ease notorious traffic congestion in Athens have also come under fire from conservatives. Transport Minister Michalis Liapis has ordered work around the clock to make up for lost time.
"At today's pace, there is not enough time to finish the project for the Olympics," Liapis said.


http://inhome.rediff.com/sports/2004/mar/18oly.htm

[OneBlueSky]

1. I lost interest in the Olympics when they started . . .

allowing professional athletes to compete . . . when it was all amateurs, it was worth paying attention to . . . once the "Dream Teams" took over, it became just one more big commercial . . .

[Benhurst]

6. I agree. I used to look forward to the Olympics. Now

I couldn't care less. But I do feel sorry for the amateurs in our country and others when "Dream Teams" are allowed to compete.

[sidpleasant]

16. re: professionals in the Olympics

There have always been professional athletes in the Olympics. The competitors in the ancient Greek games were highly paid pros. For half a century the athletes from the Soviet Union and its satellites were essentially professionals. Even the US had thinly disguised professionals: members of the armed services who trained full time for sports. The whole "amateurs only" idea has a shameful elitist, anti - democratic pedigree anyway; it was established in the early part of the last century to restrict participation in the Olympics to the upper classes. Only the rich could afford to train full time, not the working class. Eliminating the hypocrisy of "amateurs only" has meant that the best athletes in the world can compete in the Olympics which is kind of the whole point of the event, and it's raised the level of competition over all. For example, even winter sports such as luge and bobsled require year - round training. Twenty years ago those sports were ruled by East German professionals who held no - show phony jobs as soldiers or policemen. Now that American athletes can be paid a modest stipend by the USOC enabling them to train full time the US teams have become powers in those sports. The over commercialization of the Olympics is the fault of greedy host city organizing committees and especially TV, not a result of dropping the discriminatory amateurism requirement.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

18. Every country should be able to send their best no matter

whether they are professional or whatever. I think that's what is all about.

[rooboy]

24. Greedy host cities?

Please. Montreal took a bath over the '76 Olympics, and Sydney need both state and federal assistance to put on the 2000 games.

The IOC has a lock on the money, not the cities. The fees for Olympic tv coverage were so large that NOT ONE American network covered the Sydney Olympics live because they couldn't afford the asking price.

Extremely large amounts of money don't increase competition overall. Countries that can afford it become more competitive, poor countries go to hell.

[sidpleasant]

26. Re: Sydney Olympics

>>NOT ONE American network covered the Sydney Olympics live because they couldn't afford the asking price<<

Nonsense. The 15 hour time difference between Sydney and the east coast of the US was the main reason why the Games weren't shown live here. NBC did show the men's basketball final live, at midnight on a Saturday as I recall. As for "couldn't afford the asking price", NBC paid $705,000,000 for US broadcast rights, $793,000,000 for the upcoming Athens Games, and $1.508 billion for the 2006-2008 Olympics, significantly outbidding all the other US networks. They don't seem to be having any trouble "affording it".

[Kenneth ken]

2. personally, I don't care much

about the Olympics.

Howevever, I do think it is (will be?) sad for the competitors. The majority aren't professionals, at least not in the sense the US basketball team is. These people work long and hard, and sacrifice quite a lot to be able to compete at this level in their chosen sport.

The real pity is that the nations of the world don't simply pick a city in a nation (or two) and make that the official, permanent home of the games. Get rid of the corruption involved in bidding to host an Olympiad; the cost of building all the venues necessary to host one, etc.
Let all the nations contribute a portion of the cost of bilding and maintaining a site.

[Matilda]

4. I agree totally with your opinion.

Staging the Games is an unsupportable expense for many countries,
and with so many people everywhere out of work and/or homeless,
I think it's unjustifiable.

Besides, it's so corrupt, and often just a wank for politicians.

Although, I used to think they should move to Greece permanently,
but I'm not so sure about that now!

[sprockets]

3. Other problems of access for the athletes

Something about entry thru the rear to reduce the terrorist threat.

[readmylips]

5. I lost interest in the Olympics after...

it was so obvious that it was all rah..rah..rah...for the US, and every other country competing was disrespected. I cheer for my country all the time, but I don't like it when we muscle in at the expense of others. They can cancel the Olympics for all I care.

[Imajika]

7. Huh?

Every host country cheers and supports their own athletes in the games.

Why should Americans be any different?

I am sure the Greeks will be especially supportive of their own individual athletes and teams in Athens this time around.

Imajika

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

8. Really?

Is that why NBC cameras would focus only on the US athlete even if they were coming in fourth place. Last time I saw coverage from here they would only focus on US athletes and even Bob Costas made jokes about those funny foreigners. Every foreigner that I have spoken with has told me that we have the most biased coverage EVER. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who follows these games.

Even though Puerto Rico is part of the US, our commentators have said they were sickened by US bias, arrogance and ethnocentricism during previous games.

Me

[Imajika]

10. What are you talking about?

"Is that why NBC cameras would focus only on the US athlete even if they were coming in fourth place."

NBC is an American network - ofcourse it focuses in on American athletes.

Why shouldn't it? NBC knows full well that Americans are going to be most interested in how American athletes do. I am most interested in how American athletes do.

"Every foreigner that I have spoken with has told me that we have the most biased coverage EVER."

Tough. They can either watch their own network coverage in their own countries, or get a satellite dish if they can't be back home.

Incidentally, I was in Sydney in 2000 and the Aussies very much supported their own athletes and teams.

Imajika

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

11. No, WTF are you talking about?

"NBC is an American network - of course it focuses in on American athletes.

Why shouldn't it? NBC knows full well that Americans are going to be most interested in how American athletes do. I am most interested in how American athletes do."

You're supposed to focus on the winners not your own no matter how badly they're doing.

"Tough. They can either watch their own network coverage in their own countries, or get a satellite dish if they can't be back home.

Incidentally, I was in Sydney in 2000 and the Aussies very much supported their own athletes and teams."

No, they were comparing coverage in their countries of origin with that of the US. They had never seen such a biased coverage. Even when their athletes lost somehow they would make excuses. It's the Olympic games. Not the "USA we're no. 1 games". It's one thing to support your own. It's quite another to act as if only your athletes matter.

If you can't understand that then tough. As you can see a lot of people here agree.

Me

[Turley]

17. No way

Sorry, but every country does the same thing. The Europeans are waaaay worse than we are. Germany's probably the worst. If there is a choice between covering the final five minutes of the Marathon, or the bronze-medal final in ping-pong with a German playing, they will definitely show the German. It drives you absolutely nuts.

The worst thing is Soccer because it cuts across borders. If, for example, France is playing Cameroon, you won't see any other sports for two hours throughout the entire European market. And it's not as if the Euros don't see enough soccer matches the rest of the year.

I can't fault U.S. coverage too much. If you look at the coverage we gave a lot of foreign stars like Oksana Baiul, Nadia Komenici, Olga Korbut, etc I thing our networks have done a pretty fair job.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

19. I used to think so when I was younger. But lately it seems to have gotten

worse. Who knows I could be wrong. Maybe it's my overall contempt for our media.

[VLC98]

20. I agree with you 100%

I grew up in England and remember watching the BBC's coverage of the 76, 80, 84 & 88 games. Admittedly Great Britain doesn't do too well in the medals department, indeed in many finals there was no British contender, so the BBC became very skilled at concentrating on the winners. Even if a British athlete did well, the emphasis was still on the winner.

US coverage of the Olympics is drastically different...remember the commercial one year, "Who will win Dan or Dave?", (referring to the decathlon). Guess what? Neither of them did. Also, nothing seems to be broadcast live, missing the excitement of events such as the 100m. It's all pre-recorded, ready to be shown at prime time with a ton of commercials thrown in, as well as the endearing stories of US participants with violins playing in the background. Very tacky IMO.

[Kellanved]

22. well

Sports is the only (Edit: one of the very few) context(s) where nationalism isn't frowned upon in Germany.
However I have never seen any fundamental difference between the German Olympic coverage and that in other European nations, except that the German commentators tend to suck.
It is quite normal that the audience expects to see decisions which might result in a Gold Medal for the "home team" and frankly, I'll take a round of table tennis instead of the endless commercials any day.

As for Soccer, "enough soccer matches"? There is no such thing as "enough soccer matches". :hi:

[Turley]

21. No way.

Sorry, but every country does the same thing. The Europeans are waaaay worse than we are. Germany's probably the worst. If there is a choice between covering the final five minutes of the Marathon, or the bronze-medal final in ping-pong with a German playing, they will definitely show the German. It drives you absolutely nuts.

The worst thing is Soccer because it cuts across borders. If, for example, France is playing Cameroon, you won't see any other sports for two hours throughout the entire European market. And it's not as if the Euros don't see enough soccer matches the rest of the year.

I can't fault U.S. coverage too much. If you look at the coverage we gave a lot of foreign stars like Oksana Baiul, Nadia Komenici, Olga Korbut, etc I thing our networks have done a pretty fair job.

[Voice_of_Europe]

12. hehe

The US certainly made sure they won't be cheered on this time... ^_^

[snippy]

27. It will be interesting to see how the US media portrays the treatment by

the spectators of US athletes and supporters.

[DulceDecorum]

15. Tune in to Extreme Sports

I remember watching one in-line skating race where a member of the German team accidentally touched/bumped an American as they were rounding the corner.
The German went over and totally apologized and the American guy hugged him.
I felt really GOOD seeing that. I still do.
THAT was sportsmanship.

The only other place I recall seeing sportsmanship lately, was this show Battlebots on Comedy Central.
Players would help each other if the battlebot accidentally fell over. It didn't stop the helper from whooping the other guys butt though. The players didn't want to win by technicality. They wanted to PROVE their supremacy. And I really enjoyed watching that.
I only ever saw one jerk on that show. He smacked his opponent's machine after the bell had rung. And boy, did we HATE him forever afterwards.

[Blue_Tires]

9. World Cup > Olympics n/t

[ewagner]

13. What I like about the Olympics

is the stories that show the triumph of human will...whether American or from the smallest nation you can think of.

That's what it means to me. I can cut through the commercial horse-sh&t just to watch humans rise above themselves for a brief moment of personal triumph.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

14. That's a good point.

[Matilda]

23. I enjoy seeing top athletes do their stuff, whether they win medals

or not. And in Australia, if we watch live, it usually starts around
11 pm.

But this time, is everyone going to be too much on edge to really
enjoy it? Even if Osama doesn't pull anything, the security is going
to be such a heavy hand on everything, it will be hard for people
to relax and enjoy the Games.

[FlemingsGhost]

25. I believe the ancient games were held under a truce.

Warring nation-states put aside their differences (and imperialistic endeavors) to compete in the games.

Declare a two-week worldwide truce, and I'll give a shit about the Olympic games. Imagine the possibilities... if we can live in peace for two weeks, dare we dream to make it permanent?

(on edit: typo)

[waywest]

28. I vote for that!

Otherwise, the nationalism overshadows the athletics.