Athens - What a great games

Before I start I'd like to point out in a blog note I posted earlier, I stated that Jacques Rogge would not call the Athens games the best ever games, and that in fact that he definately should not. I believe that every host city should strive to be better than those in the past, thus moving the Olympic Movement forward just as the athlete progresses on thier journey to compete.

That said, I'd also like to point out that in the note I said that I believed that Athens, like Sydney would stage a great games. Today, with the closing ceremony, that was proved true. Athens staged a great games.

This is not to say that either city was without it's problems. An escaped prisoner did commandeer a fleet vehicle with guests onboard during Sydney 2000.

I am particularly concerned about some issues that arose in Athens.

They are:

• an invasion onto the field of play during the diving preliminaries
• another FOP invasion where an athlete was pushed off the course during the Marathon
• the conduct of the crowd in a boxing match where full bottles of water pelted the ring and team members when a decision went against a Greek athlete
• the crowd again disrupting competition chanting for Kanteris during the warm-up distressing some of the competitors and delaying the race by 8 minutes.
• the anarchist riots which occurred in Athens just prior to the end of the games
• the evident lack of spectators (especially in the first week) which was eventually addressed by "official scalping" where the OCOG gave some tickets to scalpers provided they sold them at face value or less. This action eventually filled the stadia.

These issues, were disgraceful, very unsportsmanlike, and in respect of the last point, leave me wondering how Greece got the games in the first place. The apparent lack of local support, being so vital to the success of the games, was missing but with credit to the Greeks they took it in stride and made it happen anyway.

My view of the Opening and Closing ceremonies, which in the scale of things are not really important to the competition or the overall success of the competitors, is mixed.

I thought the closing was much better than the opening ceremony. However, that is all a matter of expectation. I did expect a much more expansive opening ceremony, but that had been made up in the closing, which I thought showed more of the country as we know it. Yes, Greece is an ancient and modern country, in a contemporary environment such as the Olympic Games I expected some things to be different than they were, but yes the Ceremonies too were a success.

But Sincerely .... Well done Athens .... Well done Greece .... Congratulations !

Roll on Beijing .... what a fantastic time that will be too.