Troubling Times in Mar del Plata : Pan American Games: In Argentina, 6,500 athletes from 42 countries will compete in 34 sports, amid tales of financial woe and political maneuvering.

In a fading resort city attempting to reclaim its title as Argentina’s favorite seaside retreat, many of the half-million residents began celebrating the XII Pan American Games days before Saturday night’s opening ceremony at Estadio Ciudad de Mar del Plata.

While bands playing Argentine tangos, Spanish torch songs and even Yanqui rock ‘n roll turned the promenade alongside the Atlantic Ocean into their stage, hundreds of visitors to the beach sang and danced in the sand. Their approach, as several said in so many words, was to party until the Games end March 26 and then face the music.

They wake up each morning to increasingly dire newspaper headlines about the financial situation of COPAN, the organizing committee, which reportedly has spent $350 million, 133% more than originally projected; was turned down last week in desperate attempt to borrow $5 million from the federal government; and has no money for the Games’ final 15 days.

COPAN officials vehemently deny all, saying that their operating budget has held steady at $138 million. But as elections are scheduled for May, and COPAN is associated with the party in power, hardly anyone seems to be able to differentiate between political rhetoric and reality.

As for the impact on the Games, the fact that there was an opening ceremony, attended by a capacity crowd of 30,000 that included Argentine President Carlos Saul Memen and International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, was a triumph for COPAN.

Almost as soon as the Pan American Sports Organization awarded the Games to Mar del Plata six years ago, there were reports that they would be moved because of one financial crisis after another. But PASO President Mario Vasquez Rana said last week that, despite his public pronouncements to the contrary, he never doubted COPAN’s competence.

That does not mean that the 6,500 athletes from 42 countries and 34 sports will have no uneasy moments. One concern is security, the most lax at a major international multi-sport event since Black September’s raid of the Israeli dormitory during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

Another is transportation. After waiting for three hours for a bus to take them to training sessions Friday, about 30 Brazilian athletes staged a sit-down strike in the middle of the road outside the athletes’ village, blocking traffic. Panamanian swimmers said they had to wait for more than two hours for a bus to the pool for a workout.

Diving boards there were not bolted until Thursday. When they were, they were found to be less than regulation height, forcing them to be raised and bolted again.

But the most complaints have come from Buenos Aires, one of five other cities staging the few sports that are not in Mar del Plata. Baseball officials from four countries, including the United States, did not agree to participate until two weeks ago, when they finally were convinced that the field there would be acceptable. They were disappointed upon arriving to find that it was still under repair, forcing them to find other practice fields.

Because of the poor conditions in the athletes’ village in Buenos Aires, Canadians left in protest for one night before being coaxed to return. U.S. athletes, usually among the first and the loudest to complain, have been silent, part of U.S. Olympic Committee officials’ plan to complete at least one Pan American Games south of Indianapolis without being labeled “ugly Americans.”