Greek Tragedy Won IOC Sympathy

Atlanta’s fingerprints were all over Athens’ triumphant bid to host the 2004 Summer Olympics--and I don’t mean the paw marks Billy Payne left imprinted on the back of every Greek he could track down and serial hug in the wake of Friday’s vote.

Guilt won these Games for Athens, guilt that lodged and festered in the stomachs of more than a few International Olympic Committee voters ever since the IOC took the Centennial Games of 1996 and handed them to Atlanta, a megalopolis wannabe that still thinks the Games of Antiquity refers to the Braves before Hank Aaron.

Greece invented the Olympics, many, many years ago. (The expansion season was 779 B.C.) After the concept and facilities were buried for centuries, Athens--at the urging of a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin--revived the Games in 1896, pioneering the modern Olympic movement upon which Atlanta piggy-backed in the 1990 vote.

Thematically, the 100th anniversary Games should have gone to Athens.

Pragmatically, they went to the merry marketeers of Atlanta, who, somewhat remarkably, found a way to restrain themselves from embossing McDonald’s golden arches on the handle of the Olympic torch.

It was no way to treat the cradle of the Olympic Games.

It was no way to treat the Olympic Games, either.

Seven years after that fateful vote in Tokyo, the IOC reassembled in Lausanne and noticed that Athens had entered the derby again. A bad case of conscience broke out in the Palais de Beaulieu.

“The IOC might have had some kind of feeling of indebtedness to Athens,” Carlos Ferrer, an IOC member from Spain, surmised.

“They lost by a close margin to Atlanta, and when you think of the Olympics, you know, Athens has a copyright on the subject.”

Then, when the Atlanta Games turned sour, the snubbing of Athens demonized IOC voters even further.

“We thought that by going to the States, everything would be fantastic,” Ferrer said. “They promised perfect Games--just like L.A. [in 1984].

“As you know, there were some problems in 1996. So there may have been some [guilt]. Some members may have felt indebted to Athens. They were sensitive to the Athens bid.”

Anita DeFrantz, the new IOC vice president from Los Angeles, wasn’t altogether willing to buy that theory.

“If you look at the number of members who have joined the IOC since 1990, that’s a whole lot of voters who didn’t participate in that election,” she said. “So I don’t know if you can make that case.”

DeFrantz believes more voters were swayed by Athens’ 1997 bid, much improved over the feta-cheese-pie-in-the-sky promises of 1990.

“There’s a huge difference between this Athens proposal and the one in 1990,” DeFrantz said. “In 1990, they presented projections of what they would do. This time, you could feel the water in the swimming pool--all three of them. You could see the athletes running around the track in the new Olympic Stadium. . . .

“This time, there were not only promises. This time, they had the facilities. So, maybe, at the end of the day, the voters said, ‘Yes, it’s Athens. They can do it. Let’s vote for them.’ ”

Thirteen months after Atlanta ‘96, a legacy is growing, one likely to wipe that grin off Payne’s face.

Three times during formal presentations Friday, speakers for bid cities alluded critically to Atlanta while plugging their own interests.

Carl Lewis, speaking via video on behalf of Stockholm, assured voters that a Stockholm Games “won’t be a flea-market Games.”

Dimitrios Avramopoulos, mayor of Athens, guaranteed “no ambush marketing or street-vending programs.”

And Athens 2004 president Gianna Angelopoulos, a paragon of diplomacy throughout the bid process, slipped in this swipe at Atlanta’s notorious bus and taxi drivers:

“Our drivers will meet the highest international standards. They will speak foreign languages. And they will know the city.”

From the Greek point of view, with old rivals like Atlanta, who needs friends?

Rome, once the prohibitive favorite to win the 2004 Games, didn’t even come close in the final round, trailing Athens by 25 votes, 66-41.

Rome was the only city in the field that could match Athens, myth for myth and ancient ruin for ancient ruin--and it produced a humorous presentation video featuring Charlton Heston in “Ben Hur,” leaning over his racing chariot to declare his choice for 2004: Rom-a!

But the Atlanta-Athens double-team proved too much even for the Romans.

“Rome was a good candidacy,” Ferrer said. “But I think there was a widespread feeling that we owed something to Athens. Athens had a considerable advantage.”

The Greeks will remember it as Atlanta’s most valuable contribution to the Olympic movement.