Athens Learned Lesson On How To Get Olympics

Nostalgia and sentiment (and guilt) aside, Athens was voted host of the 2004 Summer Olympics because it finally had the goods: modern sports venues and concrete plans for a new airport, an improved subway, and a ring road.

All of that was missing in 1990, when the Greeks assumed their “moral right” to host the Centennial Games would outweigh Atlanta’s infrastructure, Coca-Cola’s clout, and Southern hospitality. What they understood this time, especially savvy bid chief Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, was that Athens had to make it easy for the Lords of the Rings to follow their hearts. This time the city already had more than three-quarters of the venues in place, including the 80,000-seat main stadium. So the International Olympic Committee had no technical reason to favor Rome, which the Italians, with their overbearing lobbying, never seemed to sense.

After their initial shock, the Romans took their defeat with equanimity.”We don’t die,” shrugged IOC member Primo Nebiolo, who’d trash-talked Athens from the start. “This was not a war. Rome is Rome and will always be Rome.”

Scoring points

The hidden winner in the balloting was Cape Town, which finished a creditable third in its first bid and cut the deal that put Athens over the top in exchange for the Greeks’ support in 2008. What cost the South African capital this time was the country’s high crime rate and its unfamiliarity. “Oh, you’ve got roads!” one IOC member discovered on her visit … Even before the IOC chose its 2004 host, China (either Beijing or Shanghai) and Japan (Osaka) were in line for 2008. The timing seems apt: The IOC won’t go back to Europe that year, no U.S. city is bidding, and it will have been 20 years since an Asian city (Seoul) staged the Summer Games … U.S. member Anita DeFrantz,elected recently as the first female vice president in IOC history, is downplaying speculation that she could succeed top man Juan Antonio Samaranch when (and if) he steps down after his fourth term ends in 2001. “What happened today is a statement that, yeah, a woman could be elected to the presidency,” DeFrantz said after being named by acclamation. “Maybe not this woman, but some woman. Now the door is open.” DeFrantz, a former Olympic oarswoman who sued for the right to compete in the 1980 Games despite the U.S. boycott, has plenty of time - she’s not yet 45. Prime rivals for the presidency would be fellow veeps Dick Pound of Canada, Prince Alexandre de Merode of Belgium, and Pal Schmitt of Hungary … No, the Lords haven’t flipped: Trampolining will be on the Olympic program for Sydney. The IOC also added women’s water polo and retained whitewater canoeing after originally dumping it. And ballroom dancing took another two-step toward the Games by getting formal recognition as a sport, along with rugby and surfing. Can lifesaving be far behind?

Boatload of golds

Astounding performance (three golds and a bronze) by the unheralded U.S. men’s team at the recent world rowing championships in France. Brown grad Jamie Koven,a rookie sculler who rowed in the Olympic eight in Atlanta, won the men’s single, which no American had managed since Don Spero in 1966. The eight, which returned only graybeard Bob Kaehler from last year’s fifth-place boat, won by half a second. Northeastern captain Scott Fentress and partner Jordan Irving won the coxed pair in a photo finish, the first US medal in the event since the 1984 Olympics. And the samurai-Zen combo of Harvard grad Adam Holland and Dartmouth alum Ted Murphy of West Newton, Mass., together only three months, grabbed the bronze in the uncoxed pair, the first US medal since the 1976 Olympics. Taken with a lightweight women’s gold from sculler Sarah Garner (first since 1989) and a silver from the pair of University of Massachusetts grad Michelle Borkhuis and Linda Muri of Watertown, Mass., it put the Americans second in the overall medal count behind the Germans … The Americans got another victory, too, when the international federation decided to reduce rowing’s Olympic quota to the required 550 athletes by cutting 10 percent across the board. One option, forcing countries to make up their eights from other boats, would have been a nightmare for the U.S., which has rowers scattered from coast to coast. … Predictable finish (sixth) by the rebuilding U.S. women’s gymnastics team at the recent world championships in Switzerland. The Americans, who had only Dominique Moceanu left from the Olympic gold-medal team, had to leave three underage stars at home. Top finisher in the all-around was Kristin Maloney (13th), with Moceanu one place behind. Buoyant showing, though, by the U.S. males, who matched their Olympic finish (fifth) with three rookies. “I’ve been on teams where things have gone so bad, you feel ashamed and awful,” said veteran John Roethlisberger. “But this time we walked off with respect.” The Chinese won the men’s title going away, the Romanians the women’s crown.

Medal shortage

Big takedown for the inexperienced U.S. wrestlers, who won only two medals (gold by Les Gutches at 85 kilograms and silver by Cary Kolat at 63) at the recent world freestyle championships and ended up sixth. The veteran-laden 1995 team, which took the overall title, earned six medals, four of them gold … As expected, the U.S. slam-dunked the field at the World University Games in Sicily, topping the table for the fourth straight time. The Americans won 62 medals, 20 of them gold. Biggest golden haul came in track and field and swimming (eight each), plus both men’s and women’s basketball (with Holliston, Mass.’s Kara Wolters). … The Nagano organizers have won the battle of the downhill, which will start at 1,680 meters instead of the 1,800 meters that both the IOC and the international ski federation were pushing for. The Nagano trump card was that moving the start higher into an environmentally protected national park would break Japanese law.