18 Days in August, an Olympic Blog

Contrary to Theoharis, I live AND work in Athens and will be working for the duration of the games. In that sense, a lot of what is going on is interfering with my daily routine and, in keeping with another fine Greek tradition, I complain. A lot.

It is true that, given a choice, I would have liked to be a million miles away from the Games. Agoraphobia? Possibly. This is a character thing for me. I like to take my holidays off-season, or try to go to off-beat places that tend not to be crowded. I dislike crowded clubs, avoid the rush-hour, and have been known to stay at home for Christmas (a major Greek faux-pas).

What has happened to Athens over the last seven years (the Games were awarded on a Friday night in September 1997) is simply amazing. Whichever way you look at it Athens has been changed by the Games, and this process is irreversible.

One of the projects already underway before the Games were awarded was the Metro. We didn’t believe at the time that it would ever be completed. I used to complain because the construction work would cut my route home, and of course at the time I thought it was to no avail. This is not paranoia, you see, there was ample precedent. Not least, the Thessaloniki Metro, which had started 8 years before the Athens one and was (is) still little more than a hole in the ground. And yet the Metro was completed.

Then there was the airport. I used to visit a client near where the new airport was supposed to be coming up. The entrance to their offices changed about three times a week at the time. It was a nightmare to figure out each time. And yet the airport is finished. It is not pretty (well, have you ever heard of an agoraphobic liking an airport?), but its there. And it works. And there is even a road that gets there.

Then there was the tram. Oh boy did I complain. And yet it has replaced some very polluting busses that were a nightmare in their own right. I drive a scooter you see, and there is nothing worse than being stuck behind a bus at a traffic light.

If you see a pattern here, it is because there is one. The thing is, there is a million little things like that. The ring road. The flyovers. The pavements (yes, Athens now has pavements friendly to the blind. Mostly). The point I am making is I was tired of talking our infrastructure down ages before the international media ever picked up on it. Athens has changed. And while the Games will come and go, the infrastructure will stay. For that, I am grateful for the Games, even as I continue to complain about them.

To me, we have already won the Games. Not in 1997, when we were awarded the (dubious?) honour of hosting them, and not in the last two weeks of August while participating in them, but in the seven-year preparation span. Have we beaten our own propensity for procrastination? I do not know. I wish, though I doubt it. Only time will tell. But we have achieved things great and wonderful, in a very short time span.

If you have visited Athens in the past and plan to come again for the Games you will know what I mean. If you have visited at any time during the last seven years you will remember naught but a huge construction site. If you have visited before that you will remember a small, dysfunctional and cluttered airport (changed), inadequate roads (changed), interminable traffic (improved), shabby (but cheap) taxis (not as shabby though still cheap), and so on, ad nauseum.

As I said at the beginning, the Games have changed Athens. What remains to be seen, is if Athens can change the Games. And if they can make any changes stick.

Posted by: Theoharis / 12:11 pm