Our consultant from Switzerland was Jean Michel Gunz, a former IOC employee and my traveling partner whose obsessive attention to detail rivaled my own.
Our strategy team comprised George Stephanopoulos, Lefteris Kousoulis, David Dreyer, Mark Steitz, Robin Schepper, and Michalis Zacharatos.
And of course I must mention Rita Papadopoulou, Nikos Sismanidis, Dimitris Kalopissis, Manolis Papadokonstantakis, Suzanna Apostolopoulou, Angelica Chantzou, and Panagiotis Lattas, who catered for us with such care.
With a team like this, I felt we had a good chance of winning the bid.
ON MARCH 7, 1997, IN LAUSANNE, exactly six months before the host city would be chosen in the same Swiss city, the IOC announced the technical scores the contenders had received. That meant, most important of all, that the five finalists for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games had been determined. Rome received the highest technical scores, followed by Stockholm. Even though our European rivals led the way, Athens tallied sufficiently high marks to join the final field along with South American rival Buenos Aires and African rival Cape Town.
Each of the four cities with which we were competing presented a formidable challenge, though in diverse ways.
Rome was the consensus favorite. One of the most beloved cities in the world, “The Eternal City” had in 1960 staged one of the most memorable Olympics of the modern era. That impression was undoubtedly bolstered by the fact that they were the first Olympic Games to be broadcast to North America. But even beyond the magnificent backdrop and the pageantry, Rome 1960 was replete with unforgettable performances.
Rome 2004 promised to be no less dazzling. Its technical presentation had been superb and the campaign had big-money backing. Perhaps most important of all, Rome’s bid was led by Primo Nebiolo, who, as an IOC member and President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), was one of the most powerful and well-connected men in all of international sports. But if Nebiolo was Rome’s greatest asset, he also was potentially its greatness weakness. Many in his sporting universe considered him autocratic, and his natural arrogance was exacerbated by Rome’s front-runner status. (At times throughout the bidding process, we other contenders got the impression that Rome was laughing at our less ambitious plans and promises. Its campaign team gossiped about our shortcomings and was indiscreet in its public criticism of our efforts. If the IOC President liked to make history, IOC voters historically liked to defy expectations. They have dealt unkindly with front-runners—like Athens in 1990—that appeared to regard the process as less of an election than a coronation.)
Stockholm’s plan was impressive, and the Swedes were regarded as the most reliable of the contenders when it came to executing it. Many believed a Stockholm Olympics would produce the least anxiety for the IOC and its partners. Moreover, the Swedish capital hadn’t hosted the Games since 1912, almost as long as Athens’s hiatus.
Buenos Aires, a long shot because of political unrest and escalating debt there, would also represent a historic decision, as no Olympics had ever been held in South America. And as the only candidate from the Americas, Buenos Aires might carry a solid bloc of voters.
Cape Town was a sentimental favorite given the deep reservoirs of respect and affection for South African President Nelson Mandela. While many in the IOC believed South Africa wasn’t ready for such a massive undertaking, the successful 1995 Rugby World Cup held there had opened a few eyes. And IOC President Samaranch always had his eye on making history, which would be the case with the first Olympics staged on the African continent.
While the technical scoring process was crucial, seldom was there a knockout. Once the cities passed muster on technical matters, the competition turned into a classic political campaign. François Carrard, the IOC Director General, had warned me not to waste time and money on international media campaigns. “Address the voters, and those are the IOC delegates.” Samaranch echoed his advice, telling me never to lose sight of the IOC members as individuals who, while sharing a common cause, differed considerably from one another. There were princes and business titans among them, but also a teacher from Samoa and a small businessman from Sudan. We were running in an election with only 107 voters, and each had to be approached as an individual. “You’re a smart person,” Samaranch told me. “You will know the way.”
Two months after making the final cut, Athens and the four other finalists made preliminary presentations at an IOC meeting at the Hotel Ermitage in Monte Carlo. I was scurrying from one task to another when I almost bumped into Primo Nebiolo. He and his wife were just coming out of the spa in their bathrobes. I couldn’t help thinking that I was working my butt off and he was relaxing with a soak and a sauna. He was quite polite, which made me think he didn’t consider Athens a serious threat to Rome. He even invited me to accompany him later that day to his domain, the IAAF headquarters, above the Hotel de Paris. When we were returning to the Hotel Ermitage after that tour, I must have been distracted because I stepped out in the street without looking—right into the path of an oncoming bus. Nebiolo grabbed my hand and literally yanked me to safety. As I breathlessly tried to thank him, he made light of it. “If I didn’t pull you,” he said, “everyone would believe I pushed you.”
Meanwhile, back in Athens, we had begun to schedule a systematic courtship of the IOC members that would involve hosting them in Greece as well as visiting them in their home cities around the world, while strictly adhering to IOC rules. Between March and August 1997, we welcomed ninety-six IOC members to Greece. When Athens staged the Sixth World Championships in Athletics that summer, sixty-seven IOC members visited, some of them second-timers. Over the course of our campaign, I personally traveled 288,000 miles—a dozen times the circumference of the planet—to generate support for Athens. I made no concession to my personal life. As an example, Theodore and I spent Greek Orthodox Easter on the Pacific island of Guam, presenting our case to the IOC delegates and National Olympic Committee (NOC) members from the region, while our children were home with their grandmother. We also visited and presented our case in Thailand, Cancun, Winnipeg, Iceland, Lausanne (a number of times), Japan, and Korea, among other places.
I was hardly alone in making personal sacrifices. Our adviser Jean Michel Gunz spent so much time flying with me that I honored him with a Cretan name, “Gunzakis.” We would always be huddled over a laptop computer as Gunzakis recited our latest assessment of each IOC delegate’s preferences. Then we calculated and recalculated our likely vote tally at each stage of the ballot.
When I couldn’t make a trip, Theodore usually went in my stead. With some IOC delegates, particularly businessmen, Theodore was a better choice because of others’ respect for him around the world. He was really our secret weapon, and he went to extraordinary lengths on behalf of Athens. For example, he once flew to India and Pakistan just to meet IOC members for a couple of hours. Essentially, he put our brochure in a delegate’s hands, urged him or her, “Just have a look at us,” and was on his way. Another time he flew all the way to Samoa after an IOC delegate there had requested a visit. The man scheduled an elaborate tribal dinner in Theodore’s honor, but there was a mix-up over the International Date Line and Theodore wound up arriving a day late. But that was a case when just showing up was more than enough.
There were strict rules limiting how many visits the bid committee could make, and we were sure the Italians were keeping count. But because he held no official position on our bid committee, Theodore could make an extra visit to a critical swing voter. These were in the nature of “courtesy calls” in which he never mentioned the Athens bid or the IOC vote. On ethical matters, I went above and beyond what was required of me personally. Though I may have bristled as a youngster at my father’s admonitions, I never forgot what was required of “Caesar’s wife.” From the beginning of our Olympic involvement, Theodore and I determined that we would conduct no business in Greece for the duration. Nobody would be able to compromise our efforts by pointing to a confli
ct of interest.
Once the Summer Games were Greece’s, Theodore and I received all kinds of proposals, including many offers where we would get a share of the deal without putting up any money. We turned everyone down. The lucky ones simply had their letters returned without a response. But I remember one businessman who had the gall to come to my office and invite me into his enterprise. I threw water in his face and he left looking like a wet kitten in a rainstorm.
Our Athens campaign emphasized the human touch, which was a good fit with our message that our Olympics would be conducted on a human scale. Although that was something of a budgetary necessity, the “human” emphasis resonated with the IOC in that year following the Atlanta 1996 Centennial Games. The southern US capital that had broken so many Greek hearts when it took those games from us was now going to help Athens—however inadvertently—win the 2004 Summer Games.
Back in 1990, Atlanta had sold the IOC on its famed southern hospitality as it bid for the 1996 Summer Games. And the VIPs were certainly wined and dined in warm and gracious fashion during the Centennial Games. But the scene on the streets—and, in particular, on the sidewalks—of Atlanta during the event was the polar opposite. The city’s Olympic organizing committee had been greedy and therefore licensed far too many small entrepreneurs to hawk water, T-shirts, and other souvenirs. They overran the downtown and made it look tacky—more neighborhood yard sale than prestigious Olympics—and few reaped the promised rewards. Many became frustrated and angry and their rude behavior was the very antithesis of our notions of genteel southern hospitality.
Samaranch, who had always ended each Olympics with the pronouncement that “these have been the best Games ever,” was so distressed by the host city’s behaviors that he couldn’t find a kind word for Atlanta and its citizens in his traditional remarks at the Closing Ceremony. While Athens knew better than to try again to sell its historic right to the Olympic Games, we would be selling its historic love of them, along with the promise that we in Greece would respect and cherish them. It takes a village or, in this case, an entire country. I always sensed that Samaranch was smiling on our endeavor. He had excellent commercial instincts. And what’s best for the product might not always be the biggest or splashiest market. Sometimes broadening the market is less important than revitalizing the core product, giving it a rebirth.
We couldn’t allow that loving message to be compromised by the squabbling of Greek politicians. In fact, I wanted politicians out of the process. I didn’t care about the politics of the people on my team, only that they represented our country’s best talent. I needed the IOC to see a fresh, new Greece, a modern and dynamic nation that, in terms of performance and capabilities, was indistinguishable from its continental neighbors. We entertained our guests in true spirit of philoxenia: with Greek food, Greek wine, Greek music, and Greek mythology. But our formal presentations were thoroughly modern, rehearsed many times over and utilizing the most sophisticated technology available.
I relied on a core team of professionals. Each knew his or her part and was thoroughly prepared to answer any questions, never letting ego trump team considerations. Our sessions with the IOC members we hosted provided a useful model for how we prepared for the final showdown in Lausanne. That presentation was scripted down to the second and, by my count, we ended up rehearsing it forty-five times before I deemed it ready for prime time. In Lausanne, participants would also have to be prepared to field questions from the IOC delegates, and our Athens presentations—to these very same delegates on an individual basis—proved to be excellent practice.
Keeping the politicians out of the process assured that there would be considerable resentment from powerful circles and that I would, inevitably, face blowback. Much of it was aimed at me in the form of personal attacks about my wealth.
I’m sure most of the top people in government would have preferred some earnest Socialist in frumpy clothes. But I am always myself, and I wasn’t going to pretend to be anyone else. As the first woman to lead a bid committee (and the first one to smoke cigars, since I had just taken up the habit), I would be talking to CEOs of major Olympic sponsors, to the international press, to broadcast executives from around the world, and to such royals as Britain’s Princess Anne, Monaco’s Prince Albert, Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía, and the Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix. That I was of their world and spoke their language—and I don’t just mean English or French—was a major advantage for Athens. I wasn’t going to squander it by playing some everywoman role that made the Socialists more comfortable.
The truth is we treated every IOC visitor like they were royalty. We had an intelligence team researching the likes and dislikes of each delegate. If they liked to relax by playing the piano, they were likely to find a baby grand in their Athens hotel suite. Everything we offered them was of the finest quality, from the flowers that greeted them to the pistachios left for nibbling in their room. I could have wined and dined them in fine Athens restaurants, but I preferred to show them the Greek hospitality that makes our people so special. So Theodore and I usually hosted IOC visitors at our home in Athens, letting them look out on the olive trees and smell the magnolia flowers as they dined.
We would serve elaborate meals of Greek specialties. But just in case the delegates compared notes, I never chose the same menu twice. We wanted everyone to feel equally special. I’d join those who shared my cigar habit—we offered the finest Cuban ones—for an after-dinner smoke. Sometimes we’d enjoy festive bouzouki music. Whenever Dionyssis Gangas, in particular, heard this stringed instrument, he would leap to his feet and start dancing. Sometimes he would break into a hasapiko, which is derived from the Greek word for butcher, reflecting this dance’s roots in the common man. At other times it was a sirtaki, the dance made famous in the movie Zorba the Greek. (As fate would have it, during the Athens 2004 Summer Games, the “Zorba” theme was played during all of the intervals between the various competitions in all of the stadiums across Athens, and all of the spectators—foreign and Greek—would stand and dance.)
Though every evening in our home varied slightly, the afternoon ceremony with each IOC delegate never wavered from the script.
We would proceed from Zappeion to a small forest nearby, where we had created the IOC members park. In it, we had built a small amphitheater, and from its steps, I would recite the story of the goddess Athena, favorite daughter of Zeus, and the olive tree. The legend tells us that Athena and her uncle Poseidon both had a special affection for one Greek city and both had claimed it as their domain. To settle the matter, they competed to see which one could bestow the finest gift on the city. After ascending the Acropolis, Poseidon struck the cliff with his trident, dazzling the onlookers by creating spring waters. But the waters were salty and thus of limited use. Athena then bestowed on the city its first olive tree, a gift of food, oil, and wood. As a result of her triumph, the city was name Athens and the olive tree stood as a symbol of peace.
After the recitation, each delegate would be asked to plant an olive tree. At the end of a huge field stood flagpoles bearing the flags of every “country” that had planted a tree. The honored visitors got to see their flag raised and to hear their national anthem played. The first IOC member so honored was Jim Easton, accompanied by his wife, Phyllis, from the United States. I swear I felt goose bumps every single time.
We weren’t Greeks bearing gifts. We were bearing something far more precious, memories (which were preserved with photographs, of course). Before each guest departed, they were presented with a silver-framed photo album commemorating their visit. I checked each frame personally to make sure there were no fingerprints or smudges on the silver.
Our bid campaign had become every bit of the professional operation I had envisioned. But it was not perfect. We endured our occasional mishaps. The most memorable occurred during a visit by an influential South Korean delegate, Mr. Yu Sun Kim, who was accompanied by his wife. Everything went fine until the tree ceremony.
As the flag was being raised, I immediately sensed that we had erred and were raising the flag of the wrong Korea. I glanced over at Mr. Kim and he graciously said, “Never mind.” Moments later the wrong flag was coming down and the right flag was going up. I breathed a sigh of relief as we proceeded down the amphitheater steps. When the amphitheater had been built, I had pointed out that one of the steps was steeper than the others. Everyone assured me that nobody else would notice the difference and that it didn’t matter anyhow. They were half right. Mrs. Kim didn’t notice, but her misstep sent her tumbling hard to the ground.
Fortunately, she was not hurt. And she was as gracious as her husband had been earlier. Nevertheless, I was so distressed about these faux pas that I went to the airport the next morning to see Mr. and Mrs. Kim off personally. I saw them safely into a VIP car driven by one of my most reliable associates, who would take them out to their plane. I hadn’t proceeded much farther than half a mile from the airport when my phone rang. It was my associate saying, “It happened three times.” That’s an old Greek expression that means it’s fated. And on this occasion, it was literally true. The third disaster occurred when an airport van struck the wing of the Kims’ airplane and they were forced to return to the terminal. I told Theodore, “If Kim votes for us after all this, it will be a miracle.”
Even when things went smoothly, it was a grind. We presented our plans in the morning, held ceremonies in the afternoon, and dined and danced in the evening. Unlike the men who could get away with one business suit, I had to have available different outfits for different occasions. I don’t know how many times I was racing home for the start of a dinner party and was forced to change clothes in the car. If I weren’t quite ready, we would stall, calling the man who chauffeured the various VIPs, Nikos Sismanidis, to suggest he take the scenic route just to give me a few more minutes’ grace.
My Greek Drama: Life, Love, and One Woman's Olympic Effort to Bring Glory to Her Country Page 17
