PRE-GAMES JITTERS

For nearly two years, the International Olympic Committee, dogged by the worst corruption scandal in its history, has pointed to the start of the 2000 Summer Games as its opportunity for redemption--a chance to move the world away from allegations of bribery to the grace and beauty of athletic competition.

For nearly seven years, since it was awarded the Games, Sydney has been waiting too--eager for validation that a small country has the smarts and skills to put on big Games, hopeful that a successful show will stamp Sydney as a must-see tourist destination the way Barcelona benefited from the spectacular 1992 Games.

After all the waiting, the moment is now.

The Olympic torch arrives today in Sydney. The Games formally get underway Friday with the opening ceremony. The women’s triathlon--swim, bike, run--will take place first thing Saturday morning right by this nation’s most famous icon, the angle-roofed Sydney Opera House.

Is Sydney ready?

“We believe that Sydney is ready,” says Jacques Rogge, the Belgian IOC member who has led its liaison committee with Sydney organizers.

Will there be problems with the Games?

Indisputably. Rogge, resorting to the nuanced diplomacy of IOC relations, identified “some uncertainties in some sectors,” primarily transportation around town and ensuring the security of athletes, officials and visitors. In addition, there remain issues beyond human control--such as the weather, which is in the chilly low 50s at night. Spring won’t arrive here until next week, midway through the Games.

How severe will the problems be? Can the Games really be the shining success that so many in the Olympic movement, in Sydney and in Australia are craving?

IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch remains upbeat. Speaking to the IOC’s general assembly earlier this week, Samaranch told Michael Knight, who is both president of the Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games and government minister for the Games, “You did a fantastic job.”

When the Games conclude Oct. 1, Samaranch went on, “We will hope that you will get the prize. At the end of the Games, we will say [of these Games], ‘Wonderful, exceptional and maybe another qualification,’ ” meaning “best ever,” the appellation Samaranch bestowed on Barcelona and before that on Seoul in 1988--but withheld four years ago in Atlanta.

If that is the prize, the run-up has provided some optimism. For instance, Samaranch scored a coup Sunday when he brokered a deal that will see athletes from North and South Korea walk together in Friday’s opening ceremony. “It’s very important for sport and for the future of both Koreas,” Samaranch said today at a news conference.

These last few days before the start of the Games, however, have also made plain the problems still facing Sydney organizers--even as a slew of fast-moving developments emerged to confront the IOC.

Without question, transit issues remain the No. 1 logistical priority confronting Sydney organizers. The Atlanta Games were not “best ever” in large part because transit was a headache, with the massive Olympic load overwhelming the bus fleet.

The Sydney plan will rely on buses and trains to Olympic Park, located nine miles from downtown in a western suburb called Homebush Bay.

A test run last Saturday night for an opening ceremony dress rehearsal was nearly flawless. The system moved an estimated 81,000 people to and then away from the park.

On the other hand, on Saturday night Samaranch waited for a bus that never showed up. British archer Simon Needham received a slight nick to the chin when one bus struck another Tuesday in the Olympic village. And most bus trips from downtown to the park have taken an hour or more.

In today’s editions, the Sydney Morning Herald said that 200 government buses and drivers, plus up to 50 administrators, will be added to the bus fleet. It also said 110 drivers, citing poor conditions and training, had walked off the job in the last three days.

In recent months, the train system has been plagued by breakdowns on the rails, by signal failures and even by derailments.

In an interview in his 34th-floor office overlooking Sydney Harbor, Knight said transit remains “the biggest challenge” as well as the “issue with the most risks.”

He declared: “The chances of us doing it perfectly are zero.” He also said: “There are risks to doing it well, but I think we’ve got a reasonable chance of doing it well.”

Said Samaranch: “Every Games is the same. At the beginning there are transport problems.”

Security also remains a concern.

Though terrorism can’t be ruled out, Peter Ryan, the New South Wales state police commissioner, told reporters this week after briefing the IOC, “At the moment, there is no security threat to the Games at all that we are aware of.”

The real fear, according to several officials, is a lone attacker. The Atlanta Games were marred by a bomb that exploded in Centennial Park, killing one woman and wounding 100 others. Survivalist Eric Rudolph, charged in the attack, remains a fugitive.

Rogge, speaking Wednesday, said organizers are particularly concerned with security at “Olympic Live” sites, six outdoor party venues featuring Games action on big-screen TVs as well as free music.

“The Atlanta problem happened also in a public area and not in an Olympic venue. We can’t ask for a policeman behind every Sydneysider,” Rogge said, using the term locals use for themselves. “You don’t want to make Sydney a fortress. It’s impossible, unaffordable and would not be nice.”

Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, was rocked Monday by protests that disrupted the World Economic Forum. About 5,000 antiglobalization activists ringed the meeting hall and prevented about 200 of the 850 delegates from entering. Police wielding batons broke up the protest.

Asked if organizers expect some of those protesters in Sydney, Knight responded: “Undoubtedly.”

Speaking to the IOC, Knight said: “We do have a very open and robust democratic system here where such protest is allowed, indeed facilitated, in certain locations.” But, he said, “We have a very different attitude toward protests at [Olympic] venues and protests that will disrupt the Games.”

Ryan, the police commissioner, said in a television interview: “We will not tolerate this city being closed down. We will not tolerate any disruption to the Olympic Games. We are not going to have Australia embarrassed further by these people. We will deal very, very firmly with them.”

Aside from security and transit and the weather--the forecast for Friday night’s opening ceremony, at least, is fair but cool--Knight said he has one other concern: “The thing that always looms in the back of your mind that, when it happens, you go, ‘Oh, God, why didn’t somebody think of that? It’s so bloody obvious.’ ”

By definition, it’s not possible today to know what that is. “But when it happens,” he said, “you feel doubly stupid. That’s the other fear.”

As for the IOC, it has been buffeted by a collection of incidents that have served both to illuminate the lingering effects of the corruption scandal and the persistent difficulties many individual members and the IOC as an institution have had in coming to terms with it.

The scandal centered on revelations that Salt Lake City won the 2002 Games after wooing IOC members with more than $1 million in cash, gifts and other inducements. Ten IOC members resigned or were expelled. Last December, the IOC then passed a 50-point reform plan and promised to be open and accountable.

In July, the leaders of the Salt Lake bid, Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, were indicted by a U.S. grand jury on fraud and other federal charges.

The meetings this week were the first general assembly since last December and thus provided it the opportunity to demonstrate its newfound commitment to openness and accountability.

The three-day IOC meeting was televised for accredited media on closed-circuit TV. The meeting, however, took place at one downtown Sydney hotel, the Regent, while the IOC installed the TV sets at another hotel, the Menzies, three blocks away. Call it logistics, IOC spokesman Franklin Servan-Schreiber said: “There was no other place.”

At no time during the meeting did the IOC distribute to the media or public any of the financial reports its members discussed during the session. IOC Director-General Francois Carrard said the IOC’s “accounts,” as he described them, would be made public but was unable to say when.

Bitterness about the scandal dominated discussion throughout.

As the meeting opened Monday, Senegal’s Keba Mbaye, a former judge of the World Court at The Hague, suggested that IOC members might have legal grounds to sue Salt Lake organizers over the so-called “geld” document--a cryptic 28-page memo listing members’ personal habits, loyalties and family needs.

The “geld” memo--the word means “money” in various European languages--was made public in May. It may have served as a blueprint for the Salt Lake bid. On Wednesday, closing the session, Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney--who took over the job last year--warned IOC members that they ought to expect more potentially embarrassing documents as the case against Welch and Johnson proceeds.

Romney said he is obligated under Utah law and SLOC bylaws to release virtually all documents. “You cannot just issue any piece of paper,” IOC member Julio Maglione of Uruguay said. “That’s not democracy, that’s not freedom. Many roads based on good intentions lead to hell.”

Another IOC member, Mohamad (Bob) Hasan, did not make it to the session. A onetime golfing buddy of former Indonesian dictator Suharto, Hasan has been detained for months on charges he embezzled $87 million of state money. Trial is due to begin next week. Hasan has denied wrongdoing.

The IOC disclosed this week that Samaranch had sent a letter on April 26 to Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid on Hasan’s behalf. The letter says that Hasan was an IOC member, that the IOC expected a strong Indonesian team at the Games and that “your continued support . . . to the volunteer officials involved in sport would be highly appreciated.”

IOC Vice President Dick Pound said the IOC has an obligation to all its members to lobby for them to attend the Games.

But in Jakarta on Tuesday, the nation’s attorney general, Maruki Darusman, told the Associated Press he was “amazed” by Samaranch’s letter.

“The ethics involved are quite odd,” he said. “It contravenes the spirit of the Olympics.”

For his part, Samaranch--one of the world’s consummate political operators--took pains to point out that there was “nothing” in the letter regarding Hasan’s attendance at the Games.

That letter was released just after confirmation that Samaranch had written to Australian Prime Minister John Howard asking why entry to the country had been denied to two others in the so-called “Olympic family”--boxing official Gafur Rakhimov of Uzbekistan and basketball administrator Carl Ching of Hong Kong.

Each man has been alleged to have links with organized crime. Each has denied the allegation.

Without giving specifics, Howard replied the decision was taken for security reasons. The IOC “had to trust” the Australian government, Samaranch said, even as he sought some distance from Rakhimov and Ching: “Let me be very clear. These two men are not members of the IOC.”

Others opted voluntarily to stay home. The Chinese team announced it would not be sending 27 athletes and 13 coaches to Sydney. “The overwhelming majority” of the athletes had failed drug tests, according to Chinese officials.

A number of athletes were booted off their teams after flunking drug tests. Among them: two Canadians, one swimmer from Kazakhstan and a Taiwanese weightlifter.

An Uzbeki track and field coach was caught with banned human growth hormone at Sydney airport; the Uzbeki team later issued a statement saying he needed it for a personal medical condition.

Cuban high jumper Javier Sotomayor is, however, among those expected to compete--his two-year ban for cocaine use having recently been commuted by the International Amateur Athletic Federation for “exceptional circumstances.”

“Somewhat off-message in the anti-doping field,” said Pound, who heads the new World Anti-Doping Agency, a quasi-independent group.

Amid all these developments, the IOC’s Carrard was asked if the committee felt “beleaguered.” No, he said.

“Before the Games begin, it shows that many issues are raised in anticipation of more important events to follow,” Carrard said.

“This is quite normal,” he added. “Everybody does their job. The media does their job. We do our job. Let’s wait for the Games. Our real concern is the success of the Games.”