We deliver what we promise: Greek official

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Sydney: The woman running a race against the clock to stage the 2004 Olympics in Athens dismissed talk on Thursday that the city could lose the Games and said the Greek capital would lay on a sporting show to rival Sydney's success.

"We have four hard years of preparations ahead. But what we promise, we deliver," Gianna Angelopoulous, president of the Athens Organising Committee (ATHOC), said in an interview.

"We promise that Athens will be good for the Games, good for the athletes, good for the media," she told Reuters.

She was responding to persistent reports in the Australian media that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) could strip Athens of the 2004 Games if it is not satisfied by November that ATHOC can pull off their Olympic challenge.

According to the reports, Sydney, 1984 venue Los Angeles and Seoul, site of the 1988 Games, are all in the running to be asked to step in if Athens is unable to deliver. "We don't pay attention to rumours. What we know is facts," Angelopoulous said.

Angelopoulous, a lawyer and the wife of one of Greece's leading shipping magnates, spearheaded the bid that in 1993 won Athens the right to stage the Games.

Popular with members of the IOC, she was brought back in to head the organising committee in May after Olympic chief Juan Antonio Samaranch had warned that infighting, bureaucracy and delays could cost Athens the Games.

IOC express increased confidence

The IOC expressed increased confidence in the Athens plans days before the Sydney Olympics opened on September 15 after hearing a report from Angelopoulous.

But they still have serious concerns about the schedule of the Greek city's infrastructure plans, including railways links to venues. Although Athens already has an impressive complex of athletics and swimming venues in place, a quarter of the Olympic facilities have yet to be built.

They include an Olympic village for an anticipated 16,000 athletes and officials, which ATHOC say will be ready in the northern spring of 2004, just a few months before the Games begin.

Concerns also remain about security, following the June 8 killing of a British diplomat in Athens by a leftist guerrilla group. Angelopoulos said Greece had signed a security agreement with the US government this month and would sign similar agreements with other countries.

She acknowledged that Greece, home of the ancient Olympics, still had a "marathon" to run to be ready for the 2004 Games, but said there was a common will to meet the challenge.

"Time is our enemy. We know that. We are back on track because of our efforts for the last three months," she said.

The next big test will come in November, when Olympic officials meet in the Greek capital for a debriefing on the Sydney Games, hailed by IOC officials as a stunning success.

Some 70 ATHOC officials have spent a year in Sydney working alongside the 2000 Games organisers. A further 130 have been in the city during the Games, which end on Sunday.

Angelopoulos said the lesson from Sydney was that co-ordination between Games organisers and city and government authorities was key to Olympic success.



(c) Reuters Limited.