After Losing Out to Atlanta, Athens Forgives and Forgets Being Denied Its Place as the Olympic. . .

After 16 theoretical vestal virgins oversaw an Olympic torch-passing ceremony here Saturday night, the Greek prime minister, Costas Simitis, boarded an aptly named Olympic Airways commercial jet the next morning and flew to Washington for his first official visit there.

He planted a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, made a speech at the National Press Club and then prepared to meet with President Clinton to discuss, among other subjects, Greece’s strained relations with Turkey. Many here hoped that among those other subjects, Simitis might ask Clinton to put in a good word on behalf of Athens’ new bid for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games.

Having once sworn never to bid for the Games again, incensed over being spurned in favor of Atlanta for what was to become mocked here as “the Coca-Cola Olympics,” political and civic leaders from Greece have chosen to offer the olive branch of peace.

“Tempers, you know how they are,” Nikolaos Filaretos, one of Greece’s two International Olympic Committee members, told The Times. “Blood is boiling very hot and very fast in this part of the world.

“Perhaps we are too sentimental about some things, too romantic.”

Perhaps. Where there is Greece, there is fire.

Yet heartened by encouragement from the IOC’s president that what’s past is past, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the mayor of Athens, proudly authorized the illumination of the city’s most famous ancient monuments during Saturday’s torch-relay festivities, then stated, grandly: “We are ready and determined to take this high responsibility, with respect to the Olympic idea, with seriousness, realism, concordance and with the spirit of unity.”

Here in the international house of Panhellenic sport, where the Olympic Games are believed to have originated under King Iphitus in the year 776 B.C., it was presumed that having served in 1896 as host to a revival of the long-dormant Games, then naturally Athens would be awarded the Summer Olympics again for their centennial anniversary.

Instead, the IOC chose Atlanta, where the final fortnight of XXV Olympiad will be civilization’s center of attention, beginning July 19.

Reaction here was instantaneous and furious, with the phrase “Coca-Cola Olympics” bandied about and certain Greek leaders vowing not to participate in Atlanta’s pre-Olympic pomp and circumstance. Greece has not been host to a Summer Olympics since the one 100 years ago. Los Angeles (twice), St. Louis (in 1904) and now Atlanta are the only U.S. cities ever to be so honored.

Experiencing a change of heart, several years later, prominent Greeks put this perceived snub behind them and even organized a “reenactment” of the 1896 Olympics, held Saturday. Among the many dignitaries who attended Saturday’s torch-passing was Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the IOC.

Formally accepting a submission of candidacy from Athens for the 2004 Games--the turn-of-the century Olympics already have been awarded to Sydney, Australia--at a meeting of the IOC’s executive board here, Samaranch said: “Athens, we hope, will have a very strong bid. I think that what happens in the past is in the past. The wounds do not exist today.”

All is forgiven, even Coca-Cola.

“I would say the consumption of Pepsi and Coke is equal now,” Filaretos joked.

So, while the torch was officially passed to the United States, with IOC board member Anita DeFrantz “carrying it on my lap all the way to Los Angeles” to launch a 15,000-mile, crisscrossing relay to Atlanta that begins April 27, the Greek prime minister was also traveling to America, hoping the torch would be returned once it is extinguished, Athens to Athens, dust to dust.

Grateful for a thaw in their relations, Samaranch personally invited Greek President Costis Stephanopoulos to the opening ceremony at Atlanta, agreeing that factors leading to Athens’ not being awarded the 1996 Olympics--such as inadequacy of airport size and certain athletic facilities--are being gradually overcome.

“The situation of Athens and Greece is better. Most of the facilities are already in place,” Samaranch said, specifying a new airport and stadium infrastructure and improved telecommunications systems.

DeFrantz noted a subway under development, proposed new athletic venues and a willingness to do whatever it takes to meet the Olympics’ needs. “The Games began here,” she said. “So, naturally, it would be ideal if they could come full circle and return here.”

Heritage and sentiment belong in any event, but a Greek’s relationship with the Olympics predates Christ’s relationship with Easter.

Tradition is passed along like a torch. Victor Polizos, 46, an Atlanta pediatrician, took part as a torch-bearer here in Greece, carrying it through the town of Tegea during an eight-day relay between Olympia and Athens. He did so because his uncle, Vasilios Kotsovelos, ran in the first such relay, before the Berlin Olympics of 1936.

His uncle still has that keepsake silver torch in a bookcase, as well as a German-issued certificate of authenticity. Polizos says, “I ask if I can have it, but they just laugh and put it back on the shelf.”

Atlanta and Athens do have links, like Olympic rings. Representatives from the Greek-American community in Atlanta recently pledged $500,000 to commission a six-ton bronze sculpture in downtown Atlanta, more than 24 feet wide and 17 feet high, that depicts three athletes: A nude male from the original Olympics of 776 B.C., one in knee-length pants from the Athens Olympics of 1896, and a thoroughly modern female, running presumably in the 1996 event at Atlanta.

One-fifth of funds raised was personally donated by Michael Carlos, a beverage distributor from Atlanta, who said he wanted to honor his Greek-American ancestry. Billy Payne, president of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, praised as magnanimous a gesture that would “help in promoting a positive relationship between Atlanta and Greece as we celebrate this magnificent event together.”

More than 30 visitors from Atlanta attended the torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia, at which First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton officiated while an actress, Maria Pambouki, accompanied by her “vestal virgins,” gave tribute to the flame, a ceremony they repeated in Athens before the torch continued on to the United States.

One of the visitors was Dennis Zakas, 39, an attorney from Atlanta whose father, restaurateur Louis Zakas, is chairman of the organization that commissioned the sculpture. “My father has taken it as his personal mission to bridge the gap between Greece and Atlanta,” said Dennis, who also ran with the torch in Tegea.

Because, after all, Atlanta’s gain was Athens’ loss.

At his curio shop, in the Acropolis’ shadow, Demetrios Kalogeropoulos, who goes by “Jimmy,” spoke of his recent visit to a friend’s North Hollywood restaurant. While having nothing against Atlanta, he wondered why it was chosen over Athens.

“It must be because of television,” Jimmy said. “Long ago, if a city had problems, no one outside of that city would know. Now there is television. So, now we know everyone’s problems. We know about the crazy cows in England. We know about bombs in Israel. Perhaps that is why they do not give Olympic Games to us here, even though the Games, they belong here.”

Many other Greeks agree. That is why, casting bitterness aside and washing it away with equal-opportunity brands of cola, they will strive for the Games once more.

Filaretos, who represented his country in Tokyo when the 1996 site was announced six years ago, says, “I think we missed a first-class opportunity. If, that very day, I was authorized, when I first took the floor to congratulate my friend Anita DeFrantz on the United States’ great victory, to say at that moment, ‘Athens will now be a candidate for the 2000 Games,’ then I believe Athens would be preparing at this moment for the 2000 Games.

“You have to calm down. Athens was not chosen, for whatever reason. I could have spoken about criminality, temperature, humidity in Atlanta, but it was not diplomatic to say it. This humidity, when you have to change shirts three or four times a day, it frankly worries me.

“Instead other things were said, in the heat of the moment. And this is why we were seen as the arrogant Greeks. You must understand, we feel so much passion for our tradition, we had hoped that we would be entitled to have the Olympic Games. But, time moves on. We will see what comes next.”