02/17/2001

Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece – Construction of Olympic venues must start immediately or Athens could blemish the image of the games, an IOC official warned Friday.

International Olympic Committee envoy Jacques Rogge said groundbreaking on at least some key projects must begin by the time he returns for another inspection in May.

He also said the IOC expects the Greek government to cast aside its cumbersome bureaucracy and finish the projects correctly and on schedule. Otherwise, he said, Athens – site of the first games in 1896 – might not give the games a worthy homecoming.

"Not having good venues will override the general feeling of coming back to Greece and going back to the roots," he said at the end of a two-day review.

"There is no way we will remove the games ... but the quality of the games will be decided in the next six months."

Construction delays and government red tape have emerged as the most serious problems facing Athens.

No Olympic construction project, including the Olympic Village, has moved off the drawing boards. Some sports venues are six months behind schedule, Rogge noted.

Opponents of the planned rowing center northeast of Athens presented Rogge with a petition with 11,000 signatures. Critics say the project will damage a fragile wetlands ecosystem and intrude on the historic site of the Battle of Marathon.

For now, other big issues have put aside – including security and transportation in a city with a history of political terrorism and notorious traffic woes.

"We want buildings to start coming out of the ground because without them we can't have the games," Rogge said.

Athens has been plagued by an inability to coordinate Olympic efforts since it was awarded the games in 1997. The problems are complicated by the government taking over all construction projects, leaving 2004 organizers will little control over the pace of the works.

The crisis peaked a year ago when IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said delays had placed the games in danger. The IOC later applauded Athens for accelerating the Olympic effort.

But the latest warnings suggest the IOC fears Athens could be slipping back into a crisis scenario.

Rogge said he urged Premier Costas Simitis to "do everything in his power for deadlines to be respected" and for various ministries to better coordinate efforts.

Athens organizing chief Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said the government fails to appreciate the urgency and adapt to modern times.

"There is a whole system that functions with different rules and a little slowly," she said, calling on the government to start behaving like "private industry."

She appealed for a "new philosophy and a new mentality."

"It is the paralysis of the system that worries us," she said.

Rogge denied reports the IOC had considered moving the games, and described as "rubbish" a report in Time magazine that Samaranch was lobbying to move the Olympics to Seoul, South Korea, in a bid for a Nobel Peace prize.

"There was one thing that was absolutely and purely a myth and a fiction: that is that the IOC had ever considered removing the games," Rogge said. "We have never, ever considered removing the games from Athens."

Rogge said IOC experts also discussed security with Greek officials. Some critics believe Greece's weak anti-terrorism record could increase the risks for attacks during the games.

"The government is doing its utmost on security," Rogge said.

Athens organizers have promised the largest security operation in the country's history for the Olympics – a $600 million effort that will include special commando units and a surveillance camera network around the city.