Athens Olympics chief says Games paid off

[richard]

BOSTON -- More than a year after the Athens Olympics, the Games' chief organizer says Greece is still reaping benefits from hosting the event despite its huge cost.

"I do believe the games paid off for Greece and Athens," Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday. "There have been so many changes for the better."

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who is widely credited with rescuing the games from near collapse, said Athens is still enjoying the modern transit system, new airport, boosted security systems and updated telecommunications put in place for the Olympics.

She also said employment has continued to go up, partly because of a significant jump in tourism since the Olympics. She said Greece has seen a 15 percent jump in tourism, and Athens a 20 percent rise, this year. Americans, she added, are making up a high percentage of the increase.

"This is a testament to the effectiveness of our exposure during the games," she said during an interview.

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who was in Boston to give a speech at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Angelopoulos-Daskalaki spearheaded the successful bid in 1997 to bring the Olympics back to their birthplace, only to be swept aside by Greece's former Socialist government.

She was urged to return in 2000, when the International Olympic Committee said Athens was in danger of losing the games due to massive construction and organizational delays.

She acknowledged that there are still some issues that may affect Greece's post-Olympic legacy.

She said the enormous costs of the games have caused the people of Greece to pay "more now than they should have had to pay for the pride, growth and respect that are their Olympic legacy."

She said it's important that the venues built for the games are used. Many have remained empty since the games or not realized their potential, she said.

"We conceived these venues as mixed use," she said. "As governments and private businesses look more closely at the original plans, and better understand their potential uses, most of them will become valuable, self-sustaining resources for the region."

Greece had initially planned to spend about $5.5 billion on the Olympics but the price tag soared because of the construction delays and terrorism concerns. A government official has estimated that the Olympics bill will end up close to $16 billion. Final numbers have not been released.


Source
BROOKE DONALD
Associated Press