L.A. IS ON CALL

Juan Antonio Samaranch likes his guns--his collection includes some of the finest souvenir firearms the Salt Lake City Olympic bid committee could send his way--but that was a saber the International Olympic Committee president rattled, ever dramatically, in the direction of Athens the other day.

Four years from the 2004 Summer Games, Samaranch is less than pleased with Athens’ organizational preparation. Construction on a variety of venues is behind schedule. More hotels have to be built. Ground has not been broken for the Olympic athletes’ village.

Athens, Samaranch has decreed, has become Slackersville.

Seeking to put the fire to dragging Greek feet, Samaranch theatrically went public with his discontent the other day, upbraiding Athens organizers before an IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, and kind of, sort of threatening to move the Games if Athens doesn’t get its act together by the end of the year.

In all probability, the 2004 Games aren’t going anywhere. Precedent is on Athens’ side: Atlanta never had its act together, yet the 1996 Games proceeded as planned in Georgia.

Time is on Athens’ side, as well. If the Games were taken away from the Greeks at the end of the year, the new host city would have 3 1/2 years to get ready--half the customary seven years allotted a host city.

An alternate site would need to have most of its venues already in place, meaning, most likely, a city that has already hosted the Summer Games, preferably within the last 20 years.

Sydney? It’s highly doubtful the IOC would place consecutive Summer Games at the same site, especially in light of the angst that has accompanied the buildup to the 2000 Olympics.

Atlanta? Its next Olympic candidacy is expected to be taken seriously when icicles form in Hades.

Barcelona? If sangria-addled sportswriters had their way, Barcelona would have been declared permanent Summer Olympic host during the 1992 closing ceremony. One problem as of April 2000: The ’92 Olympic village is now an apartment complex.

Seoul? IOC executive board member Kim Un Yong threw South Korea’s hat into the ring--”We are always ready,” he assured fellow IOC members--but Korea already has a major international sporting event, soccer’s World Cup, on its plate in 2002.

Los Angeles?

“We could do it,” says Richard Perelman, a member of the board of directors for the Los Angeles 2012 Olympic Bid Committee. “If the facilities were available, relative to date availability, the answer in Los Angeles is undoubtedly ‘yes.’ ”

Perelman believes the chances of Athens losing the Games “are not great. But on the 1-in-100 or 1-in-1,000 or 1-in-1 million chance that someone officially said, ‘Could you do it?’ I think as long as we could get the dates, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Los Angeles has the facilities available and the willingness to do it.

“We offer the three things that you like to have in an organizing committee: We have the sports venues, we have the infrastructure and, unlike most organizing committees, we have experience.”

Perelman is currently writing the Los Angeles 2012 bid proposal, due in December to the U.S. Olympic Organizing Committee. According to the 2012 plan, Los Angeles would need to build only one new venue--a shooting range--to accommodate the 28 Summer Olympic sports.

The same plan could be used for 2004, Los Angeles organizers say, provided the facilities weren’t already booked.

The plan, however, would look much different than the one used in 1984.

“One way of looking at it is to just go down the list of what’s new to the area since the ‘80s,” says David Simon, president of the Los Angeles 2012 bid committee. “There’s the Bren Center in Irvine, there’s the [Arrowhead] Pond in Anaheim, there’s Staples Center, there’s the Pyramid in Long Beach.

“The facilities in ‘84, a lot of them were great, but our first pass is that a majority of the facilities we are proposing when we unveil our [2012] bid later this year are going to be facilities that were not used in 1984.”

One holdover would be the Coliseum, site of the 1984 opening and closing ceremonies and track and field competition. The Olympic track was torn out years ago to create more seats for the Raiders, but another track could be reinstalled at a cost of about

$5 million.

“We’d have to fit out the Coliseum again, because the field was lowered previously,” Perelman says. “So we’d have to raise the field up so there’d be enough space there for a track, and there are some other minor improvements we’d have to make in a few other spaces, but we could certainly do it.”

The major indoor sports-- gymnastics, basketball and boxing--would be shared by the two largest venues in the area, Staples Center and the Arrowhead Pond, and possibly the still-to-be- built on-campus USC arena.

Other venues for a proposed third Los Angeles Olympics, be it in 2012 or 2004:

AQUATICS--Long Beach recently lost a close election to host the 2003 FINA World Aquatics Championships to Barcelona and is bidding for the 2005 event. Los Angeles Olympic organizers would borrow the same plan, calling for temporary above-ground pool tanks to be installed around Belmont Plaza for the swimming, diving, water polo and synchronized swimming competitions.

“You’d create a mini-festival, a swim festival, in Long Beach,” Simon says.

ARCHERY--The event would probably return to the same venue where it was held in 1984, El Dorado Park in Long Beach.

BADMINTON--The Bren Center has hosted several international badminton events. “That works really well for us,” Perelman says, “because the IBF [International Badminton Federation] is OK with the air-conditioning there. You know, with that shuttlecock floating around, you’ve got to be real careful with your air-conditioning.”

BASEBALL--A demonstration sport in 1984, the baseball competition would return to Dodger Stadium, with some early round games possibly shipped out to Edison Field in Anaheim.

CANOEING, KAYAKING, ROWING-- Lake Casitas in Ventura County was used for the 1984 canoeing and rowing competition, but Los Angeles organizers are currently considering renovating what was the old Long Beach Marine Stadium, which was used for rowing and canoeing during the 1932 Olympics.

“We’ve done some preliminary survey work and we think it’s big enough to do it,” Perelman says. “It needs some retrofitting, but that’s a possibility.”

CYCLING--The 1984 Olympic Velodrome is still standing on the Cal State Dominguez campus, but for how much longer? The facility could be razed if plans to build a 30,000-seat stadium for the Galaxy proceed.

“We recognize there’s a potential problem there,” Perelman says. “Happily, there’s another velodrome in Encino. We have a backup velodrome.”

Road races would probably return to where they were held in 1984, Mission Viejo.

EQUESTRIAN--”Clearly, Santa Anita has wonderful facilities and did a fabulous job the last time,” Perelman says. “So I think they would be able to mount that again without any real difficulty.”

FENCING--Was held in the Long Beach Convention Center in 1984 and could return there. Other options: the Los Angeles and Anaheim convention centers.

FIELD HOCKEY--East Los Angeles College has the same turf that was installed in 1982 for the ’84 Games and probably would be used again.

JUDO, TAEKWONDO--Most likely one of the three convention centers: Anaheim, Long Beach or Los Angeles.

SHOOTING--”That is the one facility we’re convinced needs to be built,” Simon says. “The reason is that the existing facility that was used in 1984 [Prado Recreation Area in Chino] was built in a flood plain. It worked in 1984, but it wouldn’t be feasible [now].”

SOCCER--The Rose Bowl would serve again as the primary site, but four stadiums are required to accommodate early round matches in both the men’s and women’s competition. Other local options include Edison Field, San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium and the proposed Galaxy stadium, scheduled to begin operation in 2002.

Stanford Stadium was used as an auxiliary site in 1984, but because the facility features prominently in San Francisco’s 2012 Olympic bid, Los Angeles planners will have to look elsewhere if an out-of-the-area site is needed. Possibilities include Phoenix, Las Vegas and Tucson.

TEAM HANDBALL--Perelman believes the Pyramid would be “absolutely fabulous for handball because it’s got that very high ceiling. And the scoreboard is way, way up.”

TENNIS--Stefan Edberg and Steffi Graf were teenage winners of the men’s and women’s 1984 demonstration events, held at the L.A. Tennis Center at UCLA. Now a fully fledged medal sport, tennis would return to UCLA, according to the new Los Angeles proposal.

VOLLEYBALL--Two facilities are needed for indoor men’s and women’s competition. Possibilities include the Arrowhead Pond, Pauley Pavilion and Long Beach Arena. Los Angeles ’84 planners didn’t have to worry about beach volleyball--the sport made its debut as an Olympic medal sport in 1996--but beaches? Los Angeles has beaches.

WEIGHTLIFTING--UCLA’s Royce Hall, site of the 1991 Olympic Festival weightlifting competition, is a top candidate.

WRESTLING--Could be held, as it was in 1984, at the Anaheim Convention Center, or the Long Beach Arena.

YACHTING--”The sailing community is getting together and they’re trying to figure out exactly how sailing would work,” Perelman says. “Is Long Beach the best place to do it, or Newport, or San Diego, or the Marina? We’ll let the sailing community deal with that.”

That is the thumbnail version of the proposal Simon and his staff intend to submit to the USOC before the December deadline. It’s a proposal geared for 2012, not 2004, and Simon emphasizes that the goal is for Los Angeles to win its own Games, well down the road, rather than pinch-hit for Athens on short notice.

“It’s fun to talk about,” Simon admits. “From the standpoint of our committee and my personal view and what I think the city officials should be thinking, it’s not, ‘Yeah, we want it,’ but rather, ‘Hey, that’s not what we’re all about, we wish the Greeks well and, hey, if somebody comes knocking, you know, we’ll certainly sit down and talk seriously.’ ”

In other words, Los Angeles: Don’t hold your breath.

“My guess is that they’ll get it together,” Perelman says of Athens organizers. “You’ve got to remember that, with the World Cup in Italy in 1990, they were still painting the San Siro the day before the opening ceremony. . . . And it was fine. It came off. That was a great World Cup.

“There’s a famous story that the day of the opening [Olympic] ceremony in Amsterdam in ‘28, they were still painting the stadium. But the ceremony still took place. That’s what counts.”