Grecian Formula Is Paying Off

ATHENS â€”  Given years to prepare for those few events the whole world watches, the Greek national soccer team has been spectacularly disappointing.

The Greeks qualified for the 1994 World Cup in the United States. They played -- and lost -- three games, scoring no goals, giving up 10. They did not qualify for the 1998 World Cup. Nor did they qualify for the 2002 World Cup.

Last week, however, in what many here have deemed an omen, portending great things ahead for the Summer Olympics, the Greek team did what many considered unthinkable. The Greeks came through in the clutch.

They defeated France, the defending European champion and the 1998 World Cup winner, advancing to the semifinals of the European soccer championships in Portugal.

The Greek team plays again tonight, against the Czech Republic, for a spot in Sunday’s final.

The Games start in 43 days. The roof is virtually done over Olympic Stadium and there’s water in the Olympic pools.

With thousands hoarse from screaming, sore from waving their oversized blue-and-white flags for nearly a week, the mood here is crystal clear: See what Greece can do -- and did you ever doubt?

“When I see them beat France, I feel something, like chills,� said Michael Nisanakis, 22, a student who still hasn’t fully regained his voice. “The same with the Games. I want these Games to be great. And why not?�

Nisanakis, like thousands of others, went careening into the streets of Athens after the victory last Friday, as a throng congregated in Omonia Square, near City Hall.

A few blocks away, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, head of the Athens 2004 organizing committee, and her husband, Theodore Angelopoulos, were leaving a wedding reception when they found themselves in the midst of a deliriously happy crowd -- everyone wanting to say hello and offer best wishes.

“Greek pride,� Gianna said with a smile.

Nearly four years after the IOC threatened to take the Games away from Athens because progress had stalled, with slightly more than six weeks to go until the Aug. 13 opening ceremony, the venues are shaping up. It looks -- finally -- as if the Olympic Games are coming to town.

IOC President Jacques Rogge said, “With every day that passes, all that is needed for the successful staging of the Olympic Games is coming together -- from the venues, to the transport infrastructure and so forth.

“Work needs to continue apace in these final weeks, but the confidence that we have always maintained that the Games will be successfully staged grows ever stronger.�

Perhaps the most problematic project, the roof over the stadium, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is nearly complete.

For years, the IOC said the roof was a luxury, not a necessity. The Greeks countered that the roof would change the look and feel of the boring stadium while serving as an enduring statement of Greek will and construction can-do.

In recent weeks, the two giant arches were swung into place -- no simple engineering feat. Only a few more translucent blue tiles remain to be installed on the canopies.

The stadium is designed to hold about 80,000. Many of the ivory-colored seats in the lower deck are already in. Next, the upper deck.

Crews have been working into the night, preparing for the opening ceremony. Down on the stadium deck, the air has been filled with the smells of sawdust and paint.

For all the progress, however, much remains to be done.

The marathon road -- the 26.2-mile race starts in the town of Marathon and finishes in central Athens -- is still unfinished. Spyros Capralos, who heads a key government agency overseeing Olympic works, wryly remarked, “It’s a road.� It will get done, he said.

Much is going to be far from perfect, in particular small details sure to get noticed.

Hundreds of trees have been planted at the main Olympic complex, from the stadium past the swimming pools and down past the cycling velodrome, but they are skinny things and the site is largely barren of grass. There probably will be grass. Will it stay green? No one knows. And, come August, the trees are still going to be skinny.

Undeniably, there’s progress. But, government and Olympic organizers acknowledge, question marks remain.

Capralos, a senior deputy at Athens 2004 headquarters before moving to the government post after a conservative party take-over in March’s national elections, expressed confidence in Greece’s Olympic plan.

But he said, “The Olympic Games is such a complex project. Many things can go wrong.�

Were test events really tests of the Olympic facilities and the officials charged with running them? There were only 8,000 seats installed in the stadium for the Greek track and field championships a few weeks ago. A crowd of 80,000 is entirely different, organizers admit.

Will a plan to provide an Olympic lane work on Athens’ chronically congested streets?

Will tickets sell? As of June 23, according to Athens 2004, 1.95 million of 5.3 million tickets had been sold, about 37%, perhaps a reflection of security concerns. Organizers say that hundreds of thousands more seats will sell as the Games near. Sales clearly will hit or top budget projections of $223 million, organizers say.

Finally, is it all really worth it? Capital costs for the 2004 Games, originally estimated at $5.6 billion, have ballooned to more than $7.3 billion. The final bill is likely to be higher still.

How, though, asked Olympic and Greek officials, do you compare dry finances with, for instance, the spirit engendered by the 2004 Olympic torch relay? Now making its way through Europe, the relay is due back in Greece on July 9, the flame, for the first time, having traveled around the world.

An encompassing torch relay was part of Athens’ winning 1997 bid for the 2004 Games. Then, because of the expense -- about $50 million in all -- and the logistical complications, the Greeks were urged to reconsider. But they persevered and found corporate sponsorship for about half the money. Now, Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said, “There comes a time when you see things happen. For me, I’m not surprised. I knew we could do it.�

Much, she and others said, like the soccer team.

“History cannot await any longer,� a columnist in the daily Ta Nea newspaper exulted after last Friday’s victory.

“It’s so unbelievable,� Nisanakis, the celebrating student, said in his raspy voice.

Said Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyannis, “People thought our soccer team would never be up to it and yet we surprised the world and reached the [European] semifinals. With the Olympics, we have reached the finals. We know we are the underdogs. We know we are playing against big competition in terms of other Olympic Games.

“But,� she said, “we are equally confident that we will surprise the world.�