1.0. C. casts doubt on Athens bid

Press, 27 April 1989, Page 36

1.0. C. casts doubt on Athens bid

NZPA-Reuter Barcelona Scepticism is growing among Olympic leaders about the prospect of Athens being awarded the 1996 centenary Games, International Olympic Committee sources said on Tuesday. Greece, where the Olympic idea was born almost 3000 years ago, is hoping to stage the 1996 Games in Athens, the site of the first modern Olympics in 1896. The Greek capital is one of six bidding cities from whom the 1.0. C. will select the 1996 Games hosts at a meeting in Tokyo in September next year. The other candidates are Atlanta (United States), Belgrade (Yugoslavia), Manchester (Britain), Melbourne (Australia) and Toronto (Canada).

There was strong support for Greece’s Olympic traditions among members of the 1.0. C. executive board attending a series of meetings in Barcelona this week.

But there was also general recognition that Athens was plagued by financial, logisti-

cal and environmental problems which seemed increasingly likely to thwart the bid. “Athens has to be an emotional favourite. You must take into account the contribution the Greeks have made to the Olympic movement and its ideals,” an 1.0. C. source said. “But it is the centenary of the Olympic Games, not the centenary of the Greek Games. “You can only award the Olympics to a city that can hold them and there is an increasing feeling that Athens can’t,” the source added. “In basketball terms, the success of the Athens bid should be a slam dunk, an absolute certainty. “But when you look at the problems of pollution, transport, communications and the absence of an infra-structure capable of supporting the Games, you have to say there are growing doubts. Athens seems to be running out of time,” the source said. Some delegates in Barcelona noted that there had been little visible progress in

curing Athens’s ills since the bid was launched more three years ago. One member said the outcome of the Greek elections in June would be a possible key to the future viability of the bid. If the socialist Government of Prime Minister, Andreas Papandreou, were to be defeated, an alternative leadership might provide more positive backing for the attempt to secure the Games, he said.

If the Athens bid does finally stumble, Toronto, Melbourne and Atlanta were seen as the cities most likely to remain in contention. A number of delegates wrote off the prospect of Belgrade or Manchester getting the nod from the 1.0. C.

The Toronto bid was felt to be particularly strong, although it remained to be seen whether it would be damaged by the Ben Johnson doping scandal at the Seoul Olympics which prompted a federal inquiry into drug abuse in Canadian sport.