Uphill Battle Is Nearly Won in Barcelona

The luxury hotel where the U.S. men’s basketball team is supposed to stay is still under construction.

Yachting officials say they fear hepatitis and bacterial problems from the polluted Mediterranean, the soccer team must play two of its opening-round games 200 miles to the west in Zaragoza, and the lack of air-conditioning in either the athletes’ village or on the team buses has everybody concerned.

Then there’s the marathon course. . . .

Yet the United States Olympic Committee delegation that made a final inspection of the 1992 Olympic venues here from April 24-26 emerged visibly impressed. More than 100 team leaders, officials, doctors and security personnel toured the athletes’ village as a group, then split up to visit each of the 44 venues scattered in and around Barcelona.

Afterward, the delegation met with USOC officials and representatives from the Barcelona Olympic Organizing Committee (COOB) to iron out last-minute details.

“We get more done in these three days with our national group leaders than we do in the other three years of the Olympic quadrennium,” said Greg Harney, the USOC’s director of International Games Preparation.

“In the Olympic movement, we have a situation where a lot of sports only come to us every fourth year. They’re made to be a part of our family for a 30-day period, and the transition can be tough.

“Now, half of what we plan here will go wrong during the actual Olympic Games. But we want each sport to anticipate problems and know how to solve them for themselves.”

The United States will send a 969-member delegation to the 1992 Games, the largest in its Olympic history and the biggest of the 183 nations expected to take part. Included in that number will be 865 American athletes and officials, almost three times the number of total participants in the 1896 Olympics at Athens. The rest of the U.S. delegation will be made up of support personnel.

As a result, the USOC says it is crucial to allow team leaders a first-hand look at everything from the beds in the athletes’ village to the warm-up track underneath Montjuic Stadium. But after the whirlwind tour, most sports officials simply shook their heads in amazement.

“Oh my, it’s fantastic,” said Leroy Walker, the USOC treasurer who headed up this delegation. “I’ve been here seven or eight times over the past few years and so much has changed. When I first came here, the athletes’ village was just a thought. They hadn’t even put the first cement out there. They’d point and say, ‘Imagine your rooms will be there.’ ”

Clearly, the athletes’ village will be the centerpiece of these Games. Designed by 28 architects and built at a cost of about $2 billion, the rambling apartment houses and plazas have replaced a city slum, leaving behind a shopping mall, two discos, four movie theaters, a 24-hour restaurant, a forest of pine, palm and olive trees and 3.7 miles of pristine Mediterranean beaches.

The United States has been allocated 700 beds in two buildings in the village and is planning to improvise a plaza with outdoor tables and umbrellas that is already dubbed “U.S. Way.”

“It’s incredible,” said former swimming star Mary T. Meagher, who now serves on the USOC Athletes Advisory Council. “A lot of sports, like swimming, finish in the first few days. I can see some athletes wanting to just stay here and hang out.”

Yet with the temperatures usually hovering in the high 90s in July and August, many believe the lack of air-conditioning in the village will be a problem. But COOB officials said they could not install air-conditioning units because nearly 85% of the village apartments have already been sold to private owners for after the Games.

“People in Barcelona don’t want, buy or use air-conditioning,” said Bernardo Joselevich, director of COOB’s National Olympic Committee service center. “Most wealthy houses don’t even have it. Hopefully, this won’t be a problem.”

The U.S. men’s basketball team thought it could beat the heat by renting out an entire hotel near the Ramblas promenade downtown. But the building is still shrouded in scaffolding with two months to go, forcing team leaders to reserve a second hotel--and a full complement of rooms in the athletes’ village--as a safeguard.

“We’re not sure what we’re going to do, to tell you the truth,” said Seton Hall Coach P.J. Carlesimo, who will serve as an assistant during the Games. “Nothing’s definite yet. It may be that we’ll do a variety of things, like stay in the hotel on off-nights, but move into the village the night before each game, to get away from family and friends and avoid any logistical problems.”

But one thing is certain: The decision by the basketball team and other high-profile athletes such as Carl Lewis and Leroy Burrell to stay outside the village has angered USOC officials, especially with terrorists such as ETA, the Basque separatist group, active here.

To make matters worse, a local newspaper recently printed the addresses of the private homes Lewis and company have rented.

“They know my feelings on the matter,” Walker said. “We can’t protect these people and neither can COOB, and that worries me. It doesn’t look good either. Our basketball team did that at the Pan American Games in Cuba (last summer), staying in Miami between games like they were living the good life. Well, living the good life isn’t the answer--they got the bronze medal.”

For the first time in 28 years, yachting will be held in the same city as the rest of the Olympics. But the Mediterranean remains polluted--despite a massive clean-up effort by COOB--prompting U.S. yachting officials to warn their sailors to consider hepatitis shots and/or packing several cases of Pepto-Bismol.

The men’s soccer team, meanwhile, will stay in the athletes’ village and play its opening game at Barcelona, then commute 400 miles round-trip for its remaining opening-round matches.

Finally, the marathon course troubles even non-runners. As if starting at 6 p.m. with the sun high overhead isn’t bad enough, the last 2.5 miles of the course is uphill. Competitors must scale Montjuic Mountain--a rise of almost 200 feet with a 7% grade--in order to reach the Olympic Stadium.

“All I know is I’m glad I’m not a runner,” said Dr. James Montgomery, a member of the USOC medical commission. “That’ll be a tough end to the race, and all we can do is advise our athletes to drink a lot of water and practice running uphill after 15 miles or so in order to beat that hill.”