SECURITY AT ATHENS 2004: Greek Mythology?

Heading into a session today with the International Olympic Committee, organizers of the 2004 Summer Games in Athens said they are committed to staging safe Games and will welcome help with their security plan.

Security experts will accompany IOC members on a visit this month to Athens, said Marton Simitsek, an Athens 2004 executive director.

“They are bringing guys,” he said of the IOC, although he did not get more specific.

“We need to start moving. But we want to move on the right track.”

Simitsek made his comments on a day of numerous developments involving the IOC as it plans for the 2004 Games in Athens and next year’s Winter Games in Salt Lake City--and gears up for the race to succeed IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, who will retire in July.

The day after announcing her intent to run for the IOC presidency, Anita DeFrantz of Los Angeles stepped in for Samaranch in opening the first meeting in Africa of the IOC’s ruling Executive Board since 1978. Samaranch, IOC president for nearly 21 years, was ailing with flu.

DeFrantz, the IOC’s ranking vice president, read Samaranch’s speech at the opening. Looking nervous, she struggled to read a string of salutations in French and had difficulty pronouncing the name of Senegal’s prime minister, Mustapha Niasse.

Later, she said of her difficulties, “I grew up in the Midwest. I’ve taken a few [French] lessons here and there.”

Late in the afternoon, the 80-year-old Samaranch arrived from Barcelona, his hometown, saying he felt better. When a reporter observed that DeFrantz had been running things in his absence, he said with a smile, “She’s training.”

DeFrantz, the senior American on the IOC, is the first woman to run for the most powerful post in international sports. Canada’s Dick Pound and Belgium’s Jacques Rogge are widely viewed as the front-runners, though neither man has announced his candidacy. South Korea’s Kim Un Yong also may run. The election will be held July 16 in Moscow. The deadline to declare is April 10.

Hungary’s Pal Schmitt, the only other declared candidate, said Monday that he intends to launch a Web site March 20 to promote his bid.

The security issue in Greece, meantime, has emerged as a significant concern in planning for 2004. Greece is home to Europe’s most elusive terrorist cell, dubbed 17 November, whose victims since 1975 include four Americans. No known member of the group has ever been arrested.

Simitsek noted Monday that the IOC last June approved the “strategic [security] plan” that Athens 2004 organizers presented for the Games. “We have a few answers on the security subject,” he said, again declining to provide details. While the IOC will be briefed, he said, “We keep it low profile.”

Greek officials, joined by Alex Gilady, who is both the IOC member in Israel and an NBC executive, also said Monday the network has not and will not ask Athens 2004 to reschedule key events--such as the 100-meter dash--so that they can be telecast live during prime time in the United States. NBC holds the U.S. broadcast rights to the Games through 2008.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, said it is facing some “real challenges” in “getting a doping lab in place” for the Games. Discussions are underway with the laboratory at UCLA, he said.

A sticking point, Pound said later, is whether testing should be done in Los Angeles or in a temporary facility in Salt Lake.

Finally, the IOC’s Juridical Commission--an internal legal advisory panel--reviewed but declined to take action on the case of U.S. swimmer Rick DeMont. He won the 400-meter freestyle as a 16-year-old in 1972 in Munich but was stripped of his gold medal when traces of a banned stimulant, ephedrine, showed up in a routine post-race urine test.

The U.S. Olympic Committee said last week that DeMont, a life-long asthma sufferer, had disclosed his medical condition and use of the prescription drug Marax, which contained ephedrine, to its doctors.

But that information was not relayed to the “proper authorities at the IOC’s medical commission,” the USOC said as part of a settlement with DeMont resolving a 1996 lawsuit.