The idea for building the stadium sprang from the mind of Mr. Karamanlis in 1979 when he was Prime Minister, and he laid the foundation stone in January, 1980. In July of that year, major excavations began in the extensive olive grove in Kalogreza, and in spite of twenty-six months’ unceasing activity, at the end of August last-minute planting, paving and construction was proceeding even at night, illuminated by the four, huge and impressive pylons which turned the area into day.
During August, too, hundreds of traffic signs pointing out the route to the stadium sprung up all over the city, and particularly on the road leading from the International Airport, so that foreign visitors drawn to the usual sites of tourism, were more likely to be led to the stadium than to the Acropolis. A new station on the Piraeus-Kifissia electric line began functioning on the day the Games began, with several new sets of cream-colored wagons being added to, and several sets of old, creaky, wooden ones being subtracted from, the railway stock.
In defiance of a few, unsportsmanlike hopes that the pollution cloud would descend over the Athens valley during the contests (thereby giving advantage to the Greek athletes who would be used to it), the nefos adhered to the Olympic Ideal and so did not present itself, or interfere with the clear-aired spirit of fair, competitive play. This was not quite true when it came to the Games’ being played above politics, for, even before they began, one enthusiastic government official could not resist mentioning, in a message of welcome, the present government’s rousing socialist call for Change. As if this were not enough, the same official was rumored to have proposed to Arthur Gold, President of the European Athletics Association, that the prizes earned by two Greek athletes be awarded by members of the government. Mr. Gold, it is said, replied bluntly that if this were to take place, he would lead all of the contestants out of the stadium.
Even the official program, in describing the construction of the stadium complex, played down the contribution of the previous government by emphasizing the extent and costs of the project since October, 1981, when the present government came to power. Former Undersecretary of Sports, Achilleas KaramanUs, who is the President’s brother, took issue with this bias and sought to set matters straight in the press.
Despite these ruffles, the Games were an enormous success, drawing unexpectedly large, attentive and enthusiastic crowds. Part of this popularity can be attributed to the nation’s pride in Greece’s historical contribution to field sports. Part may also be due to the general lack of spectator sports in this country, with the exception of professional soccer games, whose rowdiness and hooliganism accompanied by obscene language (in which Greek is remarkably rich) has been drawing growing censure from the public and the press. In the very midst of the Games, in fact, a suggestion was made that the Olympic Stadium be used as the home of a local football team. This provoked a polite and laconic request on the part of President Karamanlis to the General Secretary of Athletics, Kimon Koulouris: “Don’t give this stadium to football. It would be a pity.” Mr. Koulouris quickly took the hint and announced that the new ‘temple of athletics’ would never see a black-and-white leather ball.
Although one European and three world records had been broken in the first three days of the Games, for the largely Greek audience the epic was still lacking a national protagonist. On the first evening, spectators could not disguise their keen disappointment when Greece’s shot put hopeful, Souliana Saroudi, failed to win a medal. On the fourth day, however, they found what had been lacking in the person of Anna VerouH,who gainedjin the women’s javelin event, Greece’s first gold medal ever in the European Championships.
Like most epics, the Verouliad opened in the midst of the action, but chronologically it began on the previous Monday. While Verouli was participating in the inaugural procession of athletes, a thief entered through the window of a room in the stadium’s guesthouse where she and her mother were staying and stole a pouch containing all the family’s gold jewelry. Although the police took fingerprints and investigated, the culprit could not be traced, and an ordinary young woman would have accepted the loss of the gold as irretrievable. But not Anna Verouli: she was furious and determined to do something about it.
On the morning of the javelin event, Verouli told her father not to be upset. “Tonight,” she said, “I will present you with a gold object which you will not exchange for all the treasures in the world.” Later, while telling a journalist that she always prayed to the Virgin when she hurled the javelin, she admitted that on this occasion she was also motivated by anger.
It would take the blind, Muse-inspired old poet of Chios to describe with sufficient power and visual accuracy, this great moment in modern Hellenism when, on the evening of September 9, the Virgin of Tinos and Ares, God of Wrath, could be seen in all their glory, propelling Verouli’s javelin above seventy meters across the Olympic Stadium before the eyes of tens of thousands of stunned and jubilant spectators.
In this summary, it is impossible to give adequate space to the wealth of narrative detail, to the large numbers of secondary characters — such as Verouli’s rival in the javelin, attractive Sofia Sakorafa, who herself won a bronze medal, to her psychologist, her family and all the villains who avoid her because they do not find her pretty — but all twenty-four cantos were serialized in the papers for days and consumed with relish.
The last day of the Games could not be said to have ended with that solemnity associated with most epics, as Marathon runners were being harrassed by cars and trucks, deafened by horns and impeded by well-meaning adults and children. The final spectacle at the Panathenaic Stadium that night, however, was stirring and as well presented on ERT television as all the previous events were and which earned it the praise which it was due.
The only attempt to throw a wet blanket on, the Games occurred five days after they had ended when Associated Press journalist, Geoffrey Miller, suggested that an examination of historical documents led him to believe that the first Marathon runner in 491 B.C. followed a route other than the one commonly supposed. As a result, he argues, the event should be nine kilometers shorter. If this version should ever be officially accepted, there should be no problem here in Greece. With such a vigorous sports’ under-ministry in the present government having just completed the Olympic Stadium in record time and effort, there should be no trouble in dismantling the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens and reassembling it nine kilometers closer to Marathon in Agia Paraskevi where the ERT headquarters happen to be located. With the new Panathenaic taking its place, ERT can be rewarded for its excellent coverage with a desirable new site right in the middle of Athens.
