Athens is scrambling to prepare for Games

ATHENS, Greece — On a hillside where gypsies used to live outside this ancient city, a concrete maze of buildings is taking shape as workers scurry to finish the dusty road leading to it.

By this time next year, it's supposed to be home to 17,300 Olympic athletes and officials. For now, it's a work in progress, much like everything around Athens.

Throughout the city, cranes litter the sky, roads are torn up and construction stops and starts in fits. Greece is teetering toward the 2004 Summer Olympics with a $5.1 billion makeover of the birthplace of the modern Games.

There's a spanking new airport, a new subway system complete with archaeological displays, and miles of freshly paved roads. A light-rail system is being built, and stadiums and arenas seem to be under construction everywhere.

Nearly everything is late, after years of delays. But the Greeks are confident it will all be completed by the time the Olympic cauldron is lit next Aug. 13.

"There were a lot of problems when I first came here," Greek sports minister Nasos Alevras said. "These days we feel better. The situation is very encouraging."

The sudden urgency with which Greece is attacking the task has brought smiles to international Olympic officials, who once threatened to take the Games away.

Just three years ago, Jacques Rogge was in charge of an International Olympic Committee task force that told bickering organizers and Greek officials to get their act together — and quickly.

Now, Rogge is the president of the IOC and sees an Olympics that will blend the roots of the Games with a modern sports spectacle.

"I'm confident because I know the love for the Games that the Greeks have," Rogge said. "They are very capable once they have decided to work very hard."

Working hard, they are. The $340 million Olympic Village that was little more than a garbage-strewn hillside less than two years ago now actually resembles a village.

But the preparations are causing major disruptions to the lives of Athenians who aren't quite sure what the city has gotten itself into.

"Greece has no need for this," said Stella Alfieri, a former member of Parliament and deputy mayor. "In the end it will have a serious, serious effect on our everyday life."