Huge Preparations For Rome Olympic Games

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 5

Huge Preparations For Rome Olympic Games

, ROME. TNVTTATIONS have gone out to 91 countries to send a possible 8000 athletes to the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960. More than 80 nations are expected to send between 6000 and 7000 young men and women. Already, 55 nations, including Russia, will be sending teams- For numbers of participants and specthis is expected to be the biggest Olympiad since the original games in Greece 2736 years ago. The athletes will be accompanied by about 1000 team officials, 1000 judges, referees, and timekeepers, 1000 accredited journalists. 150 accredited photographers, 150 radio and television commentators, and between 500 and 1000 technicians and other ancillary personnel. ' In addition to the 11,000 ath? letes and; officials, there will be added yearly 260,000 spectators at each of the 18 days’ events? ?Only 20 per cent, of these are expected to be from Rome. New Town

A small town, capable of housing 8000 for a short time, is rapidly rising on the edge of Rome for the athletes. Built entirely on concrete stilts, this Olympic village will later become the home of 1502 families of Italian civil servants. The athletes who will be its first occupants will be fed at 12 restaurants which will be built in the neighbourhood. The new town is within walking distance of the Olympic swimming and football stadiums and of the “Palazetto dello Sport” (the Little Sports Palace), a gem of modem architecture which will house the basketball and weight-lifting events. Also within easy walking distance is a huge training area,

formerly a wasteland and now being quickly transformed into football, hockey and baseball fields, tennis courts, athletics tracks, swimming baths and other sports sites.

Lying in an elbow of the river Tiber and below the wooded slopes of the Villa Glori, the Olympic village is one of Italy’s most ambitious attempts at community planning. It is being built by the Italian Government at a cost of about £6,325,000 and straddles the Flaminian Way, one of Italy’s great arteries since the early days of the Roman Empire. During the Games, men athletes will be accommodated in the

buildings on one side of the road and women on the other. There will be a bath and a shower fpr each group of seven to nine athletes. Most of them will sleep two to a room. Facilities

Shops, meeting halls, lounges, bars, and hairdressers’ shops, infirmaries, travel agencies and post and telegraph offices will be distributed round the village. Each team will be allocated a small fleet of Vespa motor-scooters for travel within the eight acres of the village. But they will not

be allowed to use thetn at night, when they might disturb the athletes’ sleep. The only other motor vehicles allowed in the village will be the buses taking athletes to and from the various stadiums. The two, three, and four-storey blocks of flats forming the (village are expected to be completed at the beginning of next year. They will be flanked by a nine-storey building, which is a skyscraper for the ancient city of Rome where few buildings are allowed to tower over the palaces and Churches of the Renaissance period. The building will be used after the Games as the headquarters of all the Italian sports federations.