ATHLETICS: Ian O'Riordan explains why the Olympic organisers' confidence that they will have all venues ready in time for the Games is all Greek tomany.

You don't organise an Olympic Games without enduring tight deadlines and a little panic. Host cities have always struggled to complete certain venues on schedule.

But Athens has taken that struggle to a dangerous level, which now clearly threatens the success of the Games next August.

With just over nine months to complete the preparations, Athens appears to be relying on miracles. Many of the city's major venues still resemble vast construction sites, and many of the projected completion dates have already been passed. They're not there yet and they've a long way to go.

Yesterday, the Athens Olympic Sports Complex, a sprawling area north of the city that will be epicentre of the Games, looked something like an airport still in its planning phase. Even the Olympic Stadium, built in 1982 to host the European Athletic Championships, is barely recognisable behind the two giant steel frames that will hold a new glass arched roof.

This will also be the area for swimming, diving, water polo, basketball, tennis, gymnastics, track cycling, and various warm-up facilities. In other words, most of the main Olympic events. Only the swimming pool and two indoor facilities are near completion, and considering what else is planned for the complex - like a paved boulevard, a Piazza, restaurants, and a curved shell structure to shade the entire circulation area - it's obvious a massive amount of work has still to be done.

No one in Athens can say exactly when the entire complex will be completed, except that it will open by August 13th - the day of the Olympic Opening Ceremony. The problem there is that the Greek government is responsible for actually building the various facilities, while the Athens 2004 Organising Committee (ATHOC) then takes over the running of them.

"What we do know is that the complex will be completed in various stages, and not all at once," said Ektor Emmanouilidis of ATHOC international media relations.

"The swimming pool, for example, is to be completed for the International Diving World Cup on February 18th-22nd. The athletics stadium is to be completed for the national championships on June 11-13th. But actual completion dates for all venues are a matter for the Government."

The model for the main Olympic Complex is certainly impressive, and something similar to what was developed at Homebush in Sydney for the 2000 Games.

But hold that model up to the current picture and it's hard to imagine how they can complete the work in nine months - especially considering the complex is to be transformed into a "milestone of contemporary architecture".

If contemporary architecture means buildings horned with steel rods and roads going nowhere then perhaps the work can be completed on time. Mounds of rubble also surround the entire area, some of which have to be scaled just to get near it.

The crown of the complex is to be the 13,000-tonne steel and glass canopy over the main stadium, designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, whose style would be familiar to anyone who has crossed the new Liffey bridge at Blackhall Place. Right now, however, only two of the main steel frames have been constructed. Hundreds of smaller more intricate pieces are laid out on the ground around it - next to more piles of rubble.

But the most surprising aspect of the site is how few people are actually working on it. Men in yellow hard hats could be spotted sporadically, but it could hardly be described as a hive of activity.

Last week a team of inspectors from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made their penultimate visit to Athens, conducted a three-day tour, and apparently left reasonably satisfied that the tight deadlines could still be met.

"Time is getting short," said chief IOC inspector Denis Oswald. "But the work achieved in recent months indicates that there is no additional slippage.

"In some cases it's a question of a few days delay, which is not really worrying. I think that ATHOC and the government will have the necessary stamina to make the sprint in the last lap."

Just last Sunday, however, an Athens newspaper revealed further slippage in seven major projects. One venue, the Ano Liossia Wrestling Hall, is running seven months behind its most recent delivery date of May 2003, while the National Football Stadium at Patras and the restoration of the Panathenaiko Stadium have both had their projected delivery dates put back three months.

Panic is also setting in outside of the sporting venues. Two vital elements of the transportation infrastructure, the metro extensions to the airport (32km) and coastal venues (24km) are also behind schedule. Athens only has three metro lines, which do run an efficient service, but the airport route in particular is under real threat.

The main metro line, the green line, also leads to the Olympic Complex, but the relevant stop at Irini is also currently out of operation as upgrading is carried out.

"It was necessary to do some renovation work on the green line of the metro," explained Emmanouilidis. "But the other two lines are now completely finished. But again, we don't know the exact completion date of the metro extensions, except that we do have a promise from the government that they will be finished on time."

Delays of this kind invariably bring overspending. ATHOC are operating on a budget of €1.92 billion, while the government has allocated €4.6 billion for all the venue and transportation construction.

It will be much later before ATHOC will know how well their budget will last, but newspaper reports claim that the government budget is already being surpassed.

But the biggest stumbling block to the Olympic preparations could still be on the horizon. A general election is scheduled for early May and the opposition conservatives are heavily tipped to return to power for the first time in a decade.

Whether Prime Minister Costas Simitis survives or not, attention will certainly be diverted from the Olympic preparations - bringing further possible delays.

Positive elements to the preparations have been hard to find, but ticket sales lead the way. The second of the three phases of ticket sales has just been completed, and like the first phase it was completely sold out. Best of all as far as ATHOC were concerned, 80 per cent of the first phase tickets were sold in Greece, which quickly refuted certain claims that most Greeks weren't even interested in the Games.

"We are very happy with the numbers of tickets being sold, and also how many have been sold in Greece," said Emmanouilidis. "Many sessions are already sold out, including the closing ceremony, and the 200 metres, where our favourite Konstadinos Kenteris will run. The final phase of ticket sales will start in January when we know exactly what is left."

There was also positive news in a poll published last week in the main national newspaper Kathimerini. It found that 84.3 per cent of Greeks believe that Athens will organise a successful Olympic Games. 13.1 predicted some sort of failures, with the remainder holding no opinion.

If more Greeks had paid a visit to the main Olympic Complex then they might not have been be so optimistic.