IOC MEETINGS : Greeks Bearing Gifts Try to Lure ’96 Games

The overwhelming sentimental choice as the site for the 1996 Summer Olympics, Athens, Greece, will discover Tuesday the result of its efforts to convince International Olympic Committee members it also is the right choice.

It has not been an easy sell. Since they began their five-year, $25-million campaign, Athens’ supporters have had to answer difficult questions concerning the stability of the government, oppressive pollution and traffic, outdated telecommunications systems and threats of terrorism in view of the ancient city’s proximity to the Middle East.

They also have been challenged by solid bids from Atlanta, Toronto and Melbourne, Australia, who contend that the 100-year anniversary of the birth of the Modern Olympics should be held in a thoroughly modern city.

In a secret report that was leaked to the media, an IOC site-evaluation committee in June ranked all three of those cities ahead of Athens.

The exhaustive report since has been distributed to the 87 IOC members. But the rankings were ordered deleted by President Juan Antonio Samaranch, who, according to some IOC members, has passed along not-so-subtle hints of his preference for Athens in Tuesday’s secret-ballot vote.

Considered less serious candidates are Manchester, England, and Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

“Anyone who says he knows the winner does not know,” said Alexanderu Siperco of Romania.

According to IOC rules, voting continues until a city has a majority. The city with the fewest votes on each ballot is eliminated. Several IOC members say that they expect Tuesday’s vote to take the maximum five ballots.

“In my 22 years in this Olympic movement, this is the closest (election),” said Augustin Arroyo of Ecuador. “The cities are all so close. All have good points.

“We delegates are all people with different habits and focuses. Athens is the mother (of the Olympic movement), but you can’t vote only with your heart. You have to use your mind also.”

In recognition of that, Athens’ appeal here has been practical. As hosts of the 1991 Mediterranean Games, Athens’ officials say that 70% of the facilities required for the Olympics will be completed five years in advance.

They also say that the Olympics will give the city the incentive to address some of its shortcomings with the construction of a new, more secure airport, a subway extension, improved highways and the installation of a modern telecommunications system.

The Greek government inspires more confidence internationally under Prime Minister Constantin Mitsotakis of the right-leaning New Democracy party than it did under his scandal-tainted predecessor, Andreas Papandreou of the leftist Panhellenic Socialist Movement.

But even if the government should fall before 1996, Athens officials insist that the Olympics have the support of all factions. Most of them are represented on the bid committee, which even includes Papandreou’s son, George.

Also present at a news conference were three prominent Greek-Americans who said they are willing to commit time, energy and money to the Athens Games.

“After 100 years of Olympic history, where else do the Games belong in 1996 but Athens?” said Alex Spanos, owner of the NFL’s San Diego Chargers.

Until the strength of the candidacies of Atlanta, Melbourne and Toronto became apparent, that seemed to be the only argument Athens supporters felt was necessary to win the bid.

The site of the Ancient Olympics, Athens was the newly formed IOC’s choice as the first host when the Games were revived in 1896.

“Morally, the Games belong to us,” Spyros Metaxas, chairman of the Athens bid committee’s board of directors, said earlier this year, adding that the city would never bid again if it were not selected for the centennial.

What Metaxas meant to say, he amended this week, was that Athens would not bid again for another 100 years.

“It is not because we will be angry, but because we cannot spend so much money again on a Games whose date is not as important for us,” said Lambis Nikolaou, an IOC member from Greece.

With a budget estimated at close to $25 million, Athens has spent more than twice as much as any other city.

In comparison, Atlanta has spent $7.3 million and probably has done more with less money than any of the other candidates. Belgrade has spent less than $1 million, but it has so little visibility that it is expected to disappear entirely on the first ballot.

An active campaigner since 1986, Toronto, which has a $12-million budget, probably would have been the favorite if the vote had been held last year.

That city would allow the IOC to satisfy North American television and marketing concerns without having to return the Summer Olympics to the United States so soon after the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

But some IOC members say that Toronto peaked too soon. If they need an excuse to cast their vote elsewhere, they have to look no further than the city’s anti-Olympic committee.

“Bread, Not Circuses” held two news conferences here last week to present a list of needs--housing, jobs, day-care, community-based sport--that are more pressing than the Olympics.

A protest group by the same name is active in Melbourne, but its complaints are more environmentally oriented because the city will have to spend so little money on infrastructure.

More prepared than any candidate other than Belgrade to stage the Olympics if they were held today, Melbourne still has most of the venues available from the Games it was host of in 1956.

Calling their effort “Olympics in the Park,” Melbourne officials describe compact Games that would be held outside the city among trees, gardens and fields divided by the winding Yarre River.

But one of the Melbourne’s greatest strengths also may be its downfall. Its supporters say that it is time for the Olympics to return to the Southern Hemisphere, an argument that might sway IOC members if it did not take so long to get there.

Attempting to become only the third U.S. city after St. Louis (1904) and Los Angeles (1932, ‘84) to serve as a host for the Summer Olympics, Atlanta finished first in the IOC site-evaluation committee’s report.

It has only about 50% of the required facilities in place, but construction already has begun on the bid’s centerpiece, the 72,000-seat Georgia Dome that will become the home of the NFL’s Falcons. Of the 29 venues, 19 will be located within three miles of each other near downtown Atlanta.

Unlike Toronto and Melbourne, there is virtually no dissent in Atlanta. In fact, the city might have too much fervid support. More than 300 Atlantans, most of whom paid their own way, are here for the vote.

Whatever works.

Athens officials announced Sunday that they will provide free three-day cruises through the Greek Isles to all 15,000 athletes and officials who attend the 1996 Games.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts?

Not the IOC.