Can Greece raise Olympic spirit for 2004?
With the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Athens now just two years away, questions are being raised about what sports culture the Games will find when they return to Greek soil after a 108-year absence. Away from the success of athletics stars such as Costas Kenteris, whose 200m gold helped Greece to fifth place in the medal table at last week’s European Championships, there is some concern over the decline in the number of Greeks watching and participating in sport. The success of this year’s World Cup and Commonwealth Games – preceded by sports-mad Australia’s embrace of the last Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000 – was put down as much to the huge swell of public support as the on-field efforts. Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul and Manchester were turned into carnival cities by the events they hosted and each was feted for big turnouts even at minor contests. There was also lavish praise for the army of unpaid volunteers in each city who lent a helping hand, often simply by filling stadiums to give the right backdrop. The organizers of the Athens Games announced earlier this month that they had received more than 30,000 applications from Greeks eager to provide a similar service in 2004. Niki Bakoyianni, an Olympic high jump silver medalist in Atlanta in 1996, believes that organizers will not be able to rely on ancient traditions – the concept of the Olympics, of course, originated in Greece – to fill modern stadiums in 2004. «We have a rich sports heritage, over 2,000 years of sporting history. But a lot of this has been lost over time,» she said. There is also a major distraction for Athenians in Greece’s hundreds of sun-kissed islands, made so easy to reach through the introduction of high-speed ferries. «Give me a choice between lying on a beach and sweating it out in a sports stadium – I’ll take the ferry every time,» an Athenian businessman said. Visitors browsing Greece’s newspaper kiosks can’t help being struck by the sheer volume of sports publications on offer. But the acres of newsprint are dominated by the twin giants of soccer and basketball, and even the popularity of these perennial favorites has fallen off under the twin assault of perceived corruption and hooliganism. Total attendance at the deciding round of matches in last season’s first-division soccer championship would not have even half-filled the Olympic stadium currently under renovation. Head coach of Greece’s Olympic track and field team Odysseas Papatollis has no doubts about where the problem lies. «There are a lot of people watching on television and very few watching in the stadium,» he said. The annual Athens Grand Prix, the stage on which Maurice Greene broke the 100m world record in 1999, is unable to draw more than a few thousand supporters. «There are very few Greek people that love sport. The Greeks prefer to go for a meal in a taverna than go to watch live sport,» said Bakoyianni. For hard-nosed advertisers wanting audiences in return for their bucks, there is nothing more depressing than world record-breaking performances taking place in front of empty stands. And many of the world’s most popular participatory sports such as golf and tennis have only the most slender foothold in Greece. «The perception in Greece is that golf is for old people with time on their hands. There’s a small and loyal following but it’s not growing and we don’t expect that to change,» said Greek golf federation spokesperson Anna Papandreou. The sporting needs of the general public are not always compatible with Olympic works. Athens organizers clashed with amateur athletics groups in June over plans to shut down the popular running track at the central Panathenaic stadium, which was the venue of the first modern Olympics in 1896. The marble stadium will host archery and the finish of the Olympic marathon in 2004. But construction work will shut the horseshoe-shaped track nestled in the hillside, making it off limits to over 1,000 joggers for two years. The stadium runners attacked the closure as «unreasonable, anti-athletic and against the spirit of the Olympic ideal.» Despite these enthusiasts, the city’s biggest running event, the annual marathon, draws none of the crowds of New York and London. The historic 26.2-mile slog from the village of Marathon to the city center attracts more bemusement than passion. One passer-by at the wet and wintry November 2001 race stopped to talk to one of the competitors as they approached the stadium finish. «Why are you running in the rain?» she asked.
