OLYMPIC GAMES FEVERISH ACTIVITY AS MEXICO CITY PREPARES

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 14

OLYMPIC GAMES FEVERISH ACTIVITY AS MEXICO CITY PREPARES

(By the Mexico City correspondent of the “Financial Times/’ London) (Reprinted by arrangement)

The much publicised inauguration by President Diaz Ordaz of a truly “revolutionary” de luxe hotel, “El Camino Real” in Mexico City’s West End, served as yet another reminder, if this was necessary, that the nineteenth Olympic Games will be opening here on October 12.

The “Camino Real" is a 30,000 square metre complex of 720 suites and rooms on staggered cleverly-landscaped levels with multiple swimming pools, fountains, restaurants, bars and even tennis courts. It will house a large proportion of the visiting Olympic officials and other dignitaries, and those addicted to scotch-and-sodas will be paying the equivalent of 14s 6d for them! This extraordinary establishment was built by 3000 workmen in 18 months flat. Greater Challenge Febrile ant-like activity of this sort is the order of the day in numerous parts of this enormous city as it gets ready for the vast influx of foreigners expected in October. Before then, several more de luxe hotels will open and the finishing touches still have to be given to anything between a dozen and a score of “Olympic sites” distributed all over the area.

Each successive Olympiad, in the post-war period, has offered a greater challenge to the host country than the preceding one. The number of participating nations, and, therefore, of athletes, steadily increases; so do the numbers of visitors, with the growing opulence in many countries and improved air travel facilities; simultaneously, “native” normal urban traffic congestion problems naturally intensify. In the case of Mexico City, the fact that three or four first-class highways lead to it from the U.S. spells accommodation and traffic problems of a special significance.

“Villa” on the east side; and 100 yards further on lies the oldest man-made construction on the American continent, the primitive pyramid of Cuicuilco, built before the lava was spewed up by the nearby extinct volcano of Xitle.

The original layout of the “Villa” was slightly changed at the last moment, when the first levelling operations opened up primitive burials and small pyramidal structures which it was decided to conserve in situ. So the athletes of 1968 will find, right outside their front doors, evidence of an emerging culture before the Olympic concept was born in Greece in B.C. 776. A Miami Beach “Villa Olimpica" has been translated as Olympic Village, but the word "village” is most misleading. Despite the green backdrop of wooded mountains immediately to the south, culminating in the rocky peak of Ajusco sixth highest mountain, 13,612 feet above the sea), what is coming into being more closely resembles the contours of a transplanted Miami Beach.

Since May last year 90 architects and engineers and 3500 workmen have produced this complex. Total construction costs are announced as 215 m pesos (about £7.2m); it is stated that the International Olympic Committee will pay the bank responsible for the project 6m pesos rent for the six weeks, during which it will house the world’s athletes, including those who will arrive in advance™ to acclimatise themselves. The first Of these will

come on September 13 and two days later the first British long-distance runners and others will arrive.

One problem of the greatest importance is the feeding of 10,000 athletes of diverse and exigent gastronomic requirements in a country where the basic diet of the ordinary man is maize in one form or another, beans and chilli. Army Of Caterers Six enormous dining halls and kitchens have been constructed on the top of a low rise overlooking the running track, and 1200 employees are in special training for the preparation and smooth dispensation of the 1.2 m. meals which will be served from the time the first athletes move in until the end of the Games. Each dining unit will have a different menu and cater for a different ethnic group, namely, the Spanish-speaking countries, the English-speak-ing countries, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the AfroAsian nations, and one unit will be quite international. The catering programme has been the object of detailed international consultation and precise study. The Mexican chefs will have Polish, Chinese and Swiss colleagues. Sample amounts of specific food items contracted for: 1.2 m. eggs, and the same number of pounds of beef, 72,6601 b of cheese, 112,2001 b of poultry, 44,0001 b of pork; apparently no mutton; 200,000 containers of yoghourt, 1.2 m. individual cartons of milk, a million servings of ice cream and 719,4001 b of fresh fruit and vegetables.

This year’s Olympics, the sixth since the war, after London, Helsinki, Melbourne, Rome and Tokyo—and the first to be held in Latin America—present a challenge and responsibility of no mean order to the Mexican authorities. Boosing Complex At this moment, activity is perhaps at its most feverish at the so-called “Villa Ollmpica” where, 15 months ago, the first bulldozers went in to prepare a vast complex, now nearing completion, to house most of the 10,000 athletes and journalists from 112 countries. In essence, it consists of 29 handsome red-brick earth-quake-proof six-and-ten-storey blocks of 904 fairly spacious utility apartments, plus six separate canteens or restaurants, a clinic, swimming pool, gymnasia, social club, press centre, shopping section and much else, including training tracks, and spacious lawns. Until May, 1967, these 90,000 square metres were uneven waste-land about three miles south of the capital at the southern edge of the lava field called El Pedregal. The main highway to Acapulco and the Pacific skirts the