A dove’s feather from Ancient Olympia
Athens 2004 President Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, elegant as always, was an official guest at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Also there for the opening ceremony was US President George W. Bush, where he heard Utah Governor Mike Leavitt speak with emotion about the lighting of the Olympic flame three months previously in Ancient Olympia. Leavitt presented Bush with a white feather that had fallen at his feet in Olympia from one of the white doves released into the air as the flame was lit. The Athens 2004 president gave us her impressions of the opening ceremony, when the Olympic flame was brought in by skiers. «The sight of the Olympic flame touched everyone in the stadium, particularly those of us from the Athens 2004 committee,» she said. Angelopoulos-Daskalaki appealed to Greek sculptors to design a torch worthy of the Athens Olympics, a design which will be reproduced on postage stamps, medals, pins, on T-shirts, bags and other products. This informal request will, of course, be followed by an official invitation for designs. Artists take note. After all, we surely won’t be asking Calatrava to design our own Olympic torch! The FTSE/ASE-20 index of blue chips shed 1.73 percent to 1,281.27 points and telecom stocks lost 1.25 percent, in line with European peers.
