Out of interest
Winning the bid to host a big sports event is sometimes only half the job; the other half is keeping it.
Alaa Abdel-Ghani looks at some historical Indian givers
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Athen's slack construction pace almost lost it the 2004 Olympics. Archeological finds were said to be the cause of delay
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Nobody ever seriously thought that this year's Olympics would be taken away from Athens. There is no such precedent by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to withdraw a bid from a city which has been awarded the Games. Still, Athens has experienced a few close shaves. Greek authorities were slow out of the blocks after being awarded the Games in 1997 and have been trying to catch up ever since. Mired in chronic delays caused by bureaucracy and infighting, Athens has been warned several times to pick up the pace, the most recent rebuke coming last week from IOC Chief Jacques Rogge who said Athens faced "a race against time if it is to stage a successful Games this summer. This is a strong message that's been conveyed to the organisers."
But barring an A-bomb splattering Athens all over the archipelago, the Games, which Athens invented, will return to its birthplace beginning on 13 August.
Some cities, though, are not as lucky as Athens and some sports bodies are not as lenient as the IOC. Little brother FIFA, the world's governing body of football, has taught us by example that the battle for the other sports extravaganza, the World Cup, might not be so much in the winning but rather in the keeping.
There is a precedent for FIFA to take tournaments away from designated hosts. It happened last year to China which lost the right to host the Women's World Cup because of a SARS outbreak. The event went instead to the United States.
A cholera outbreak in one of Nigeria's northern states led to the switching of the 1995 under-20 soccer championship to Qatar.
Some might argue that the women's version of the World Cup and a youth championship are not like the real thing and thus the impact on global sports was minimal at best.
But there was a "big" World Cup that was transferred somewhere else. In 1986, the 13th World Cup was played in Mexico which thus became the first and so far only country to host the competition twice. The Mexicans were selected as a replacement after the original choice, Colombia, announced in 1983 that it could no longer afford to stage the tournament.
Even Mexico was in jeopardy of staging the event again after 20,000 people were killed in an earthquake in Mexico shortly before the World Cup began but FIFA went ahead with the cup anyway.
Some claim that the shift to the United States and Qatar was money-oriented. In the US, the ailing professional women's league needed a publicity injection and it is there, too, that there is much more sponsorship potential than in China.
While the outbreak of the SARS virus was a plausible enough excuse, the tournament was not due to kick off until August. China, which meekly accepted the decision, might well have argued that it still had time to bring the outbreak under control before the cup began later in the year.
Any protestations China might have had were nullified by a FIFA promise that it could have the next women's showpiece in 2007 -- a counter from Zurich to head off Chinese complaints.
The switch to oil-rich Qatar also presumably made FIFA a lot of money. Africa's reaction was furious and there was a partial boycott of the event, though all for naught.
Perhaps the world of football politics and a FIFA organisation ever more driven by the need to finance a bulky infrastructure were the driving forces that led to FIFA's give-and-takes. Or perhaps the diseases that threatened China and Nigeria were serious enough to warrant replacements. The point is that FIFA did not hesitate to take away a tournament, meaning it could do it again.
Two months from now FIFA will decide who is to stage the 2010 World Cup. While the focus of the five challengers, which includes Egypt, will obviously be on winning the bid, the victor should at least consider the possibility that there will be a much tougher task trying to hold onto the tournament once it has been awarded.
Athens is not suffering from earthquakes, a shortage of money, SARS or cholera, but it is afflicted with the typical Mediterranean malaise whose symptoms are represented in putting off what can be done today to next leap year, not doing anything until it's too late and not doing it until you're told to do it.
Lackadaisical-stricken countries like Greece greatly bother organisations like the IOC. Which is why Athens has been told in no uncertain terms to hurry up. A number of key construction projects are yet to be completed, including a giant steel-and-glass roof over the main Olympic Stadium. Tram and rail lines, the swimming venue and improvements to the marathon course still need addressing. So far, only around a third of the Olympic stadiums have been completed. The Greek authorities insist everything will be ready on time. But IOC inspectors have continued to warn during their frequent visits to Athens that not a day can be lost if the deadlines are to be met.
So concerned is Rogge that he says the stadium roof -- intended as the signature image of the Games -- is not absolutely necessary and has requested instead that Athens concentrate on a few "vital" areas -- ensuring a safe Games, good conditions for the athletes, smooth transportation, well-run venues and compelling television images -- and put aside non-essential projects in a final push to prepare for the Athens Games. "I am interested in the core delivery of the Games," Rogge said. "If we have the stadium without the roof, but still functioning well, I am perfectly happy."
It is rare for an IOC president to raise doubts about the success of an Olympics so close to the opening date. It is at the same time impossible, with just five months left, that the Summer Olympics will be held anywhere except Athens. But FIFA has definitely learnt from the Athens headache and will not want to go the same route.
