Selection Decried in Losing Cities

Poised for a celebration of Olympic proportions, the people of Athens, birthplace of the modern Olympic Games, instead spent Tuesday stunned by the very body it helped create.

The Olympics won’t be coming home again.

Crowds gathered in town squares, waiting for the 21-gun salute that would kick off parades around the country. Ships in port were ready to sound their sirens with the news that Athens would be the site of the centennial of the modern Olympic Games in 1996.

People filled Athens’ Panathinaic Stadium, a marble horseshoe-shaped arena where the the first modern Olympics were opened in 1896, watching the giant television screens on which they expected to see Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, tell the world that Athens had been chosen.

Instead, they heard Atlanta was selected.

“Atlanta could have won the Games any time, but why 1996?” asked Costas Apostolatos, an Athens high school principal. “This is the centennial celebration of one of the greatest gifts ancient Greece ever gave to the world.”

Greece, birthplace of the ancient Olympics in 776 B.C., spent $30 million in its bid for the Games. All three major political parties set aside their differences and joined forces to organize the capital’s candidacy, presented by the Athens Olympic Organizing Committee.

“American money, American organization,” said Nickolas Filaretos, a member of the Athens Olympic Bid Committee. “It’s a great disappointment.”

Said sportscaster Elias Basinas: “In the long run it will perhaps prove better that we did not get them. They deserve Atlanta, the capital of Coca-Cola and of American crime.”

Celebrations also were curtailed in Toronto; Manchester, England; Melbourne, Australia, and Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the other site finalists.

In Toronto, about 4,000 disappointed Olympic boosters left the SkyDome and headed to work after the announcement, viewed on the stadium’s massive TV screen.

The state Tanjug news agency in Belgrade said, “A gross sports injustice” has been done.

“This is a precedent of sorts--the USA had the Olympic Games only six years ago,” said Aleksandar Bakocevic, president of the Yugoslav Olympic Committee. “This, evidently, represents a defeat of the Olympic and sports spirit.”

Thousands of mostly young people jammed Melbourne’s City Square to listen to live music before the announcement. After the decision was announced, there was booing and angry shouts.