ATHENS: Olympic inspectors made a tour of key sites around Athens yesterday, as Greek ministers tried to allay concerns about delays in the construction of what many had hoped would be the jewel in the crown of next year's games - the main stadium's glass-and-steel roof - and two crucial transport projects.
The ministers said all the sports venues, including the stadium's landmark dome, would be ready by the time test events were held in June 2004, two months before the Olympics.
But inspectors from the International Olympic Committee, who will conduct one other check before the event, appeared unconvinced. In particular, they are concerned about a new tramline and suburban railway which is supposed to be completed in time for the event.
Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, who heads the 2004 Olympics organising committee, conceded they were worried. "Concern has been expressed over the [suburban railway] project and this is one of the things we will discuss with the IOC to see how justified they are and to see how we will get past the difficult phase."
The 24-km tramline and 32-km railway are meant to link stadiums with the airport.
The tram system alone is expected to transport 8,500 spectators an hour. IOC officials see the project as vital given the Greek capital's notoriously traffic-clogged streets.
But slipping construction deadlines - blamed on insufficient environmental studies, court cases brought by protesting residents and the discovery of antiquities - have raised the possibility of scrapping more than a third of the tramline's planned stations.
The Greek government has promised to provide buses to ferry people from the airport if the suburban railway is not finished on time.
Greece's Culture Minister, Mr Evangelos Venizelos, who is in charge of government preparations for the games, tried to ease the IOC's concerns.
"The lines needed for the games will be ready," he said. "We will do even more than what the IOC wants. We will have the whole project ready . . . "
Increasingly the preparations are being seen as a project to modernise the country. "What we are building is the new Greece," Mr Costas Simitis, the Greek Prime Minister, said last month.
"One cannot deny that there have been delays," Mr Kikis Lazarides, the Greek Cypriot IOC member said.
"But what the Greeks will succeed in doing is hosting a very different Olympics, by blending the modern with the ancient."
"Only they can do it and, in that respect, the games will be unique."-