My Greek Drama: Life, Love, and One Woman's Olympic Effort to Bring Glory to Her Country

by Gianna Angelopoulos

  As I stood at the podium and introduced our short films and the other speakers, I felt that we were commanding the audience’s attention. No doubt we were benefiting from comparisons with Greece’s sloppy and hyperemotional performance the last time it sought the Olympics. By contrast, we were disciplined in our timing, on point in our presentations, and, though striking a few sentimental notes, decidedly professional. We didn’t just talk about ancient Olympia; we talked about modern Athens—the new airport, the metro system, the improved air quality, and our green commitment to solar, wind, and geothermal energy.

  When it came time for me to conclude our presentation, I felt goose bumps as I made Athens’s final plea.

  If the athletes are the dreamers, you are the dream makers. With your vote, you can weave wreaths of victory for the athletes from the olive trees we planted together in your park … Nowhere in the world is the heart and heritage of a people more bound together with the Olympic Games. Give us this chance today and we will make you proud. We will give you an Olympics that is good for the Games. This is our promise to you and, with three thousand years of history behind us, it is a promise we are destined to keep.

  Afterward, Samaranch congratulated us and asked, since I hadn’t used a teleprompter, where I had managed to hide an earpiece. He couldn’t believe that there was no earpiece, that I not only knew all my lines by heart but also every single line in our presentation. Despite my exhilaration and the enthusiastic reaction of my Athens team, it didn’t take long for those goose bumps to turn back into nerves. The long wait—through the IOC lunch and two more city presentations—was excruciating.

  At long last, the hour of reckoning had come, and we awaited the IOC judgment. Naturally, we had one last Greek squabble over our seating arrangements. I was told that I should sit between the Mayor and the Sports Minister. But I was not leaving Theodore’s side. He had done more for Athens—with no recognition—than anyone else. “Theodore has always been by my side,” I said. “We will sit together.” And we did.

  Then the vote began. We believed that if Athens could stay close to Rome in the early balloting, we could catch the Eternal City in the end. While Rome was a strong first choice for its backers, I was convinced that many more delegates preferred Athens as their second or third choice. I didn’t believe that delegates who were supporting underdogs were likely to gravitate to the favorite—particularly to a rich, arrogant favorite like Rome. The vote would be conducted in private and we would know nothing about the proceedings until the IOC President came out and announced the winner.

  As it turned out, we did even better than we expected. The long wait through five ballots would not have been as agonizing if we had known we were in the lead from the start. But we didn’t have the comfort of that knowledge.

  There is no reason, however, that readers should have to wait too. The results of the first ballot were:

  Athens 32

  Rome 23

  Stockholm 20

  Cape Town 16

  Buenos Aires 16

  The tie for fourth place meant a second ballot run-off to see whether Cape Town or Buenos Aires would survive into the third round, and Cape Town prevailed over Buenos Aires, 62 to 44.

  In the third round, Buenos Aires’s votes would be scattered among Athens, Rome, and Cape Town, which meant that we maintained our solid lead while Stockholm went out. Had I known we were ten votes up at that point, I might have started breathing again.

  Athens 38

  Rome 28

  Cape Town 22

  Stockholm 19

  My theory would be tested on the fourth ballot. Would the Europeans who had backed the Swedes gravitate to the other European underdog? As it turned out, they did.

  Athens 52

  Rome 35

  Cape Town 20

  The final vote came down to Athens and Rome. But we knew none of this as we squirmed in our seats waiting for the final announcement, though for a long time I had sensed that the vote was heading toward this showdown. While we waited, we were shown some sports videos to pass the time. Fouras, who was so nervous he was babbling, thought every frame of the movie was an arcane clue to the final result. “Why are they showing a Turkish athlete?” he wondered aloud. “What do you think that means?” Did I really have to tell him that it meant absolutely nothing? “Calm down,” I told him. “Are you a jerk? Istanbul isn’t even one of the candidates.”

  Finally, and mercifully, the IOC officials paraded back into the hall. The voting delegates did not yet know the result, but they at least knew which cities had made it to the final ballot. First into the room were the honorary members, including ex-King Constantine. Did he have something in his eye or was he actually winking at us? Then came the IOC’s voting delegates; our Greek delegate Lambis Nikolaou appeared to be making a classic Greek gesture with his hand, moving it from one side to another, meaning something like the French expression comme ci, comme ça, or “so-so.” I feared he was signaling that disappointment awaited us. Samaranch was the last to enter the hall, and as he approached the podium, I took a very deep breath. I sensed—or maybe it was my intuition—that he was seeking to locate the delegation from the winning city. Was it my imagination or, for just a second, did he look right at me?

  Then came the magical words from the dream maker in his classical Catalan pronunciation of the English: “The city that will have the great honor and responsibility of organizing the Games of the XXVIIIth Olympiad is … Athens.”

  Pandemonium swept over us. Theodore actually lifted me up and was twirling me around as if we were dancing. Everybody was hugging, kissing, and dancing. So many people grabbed me and kissed me that I continually had to retrieve my pearl earrings—a special gift that my husband brought me from Japan when Dimitris was born—from the floor lest they get crushed or lost in the mayhem. I could hear Fouras shouting, “I am going to shave my moustache!” My mother was there with our children and told me that Dimitris, who was just five years old, woke up to the raucous celebration and asked her: “Did we get it? Did we get it?”

  In Athens, thousands had gathered at Zappeion to watch the announcement on huge video screens. When Greece won, a huge cry went up from the crowd. “Hellas! Hellas!” (Greece! Greece!)

  For the first time in decades, the Greek people came together as a proud nation, ready to take their proper place on the world’s stage.

  When we eventually calmed down, the Athens team was ushered onto the stage for the official signing of the host city contract. I became the first bid-committee President given the honor of signing along with the Mayor. I always carry a number of pens—different pens for different occasions—and this one required a very special pen. Actually, Theodore had given me the pen as a gift a year earlier, in Singapore, and his words were: “Keep it to sign when Athens wins!”

  When the formalities were over, somebody passed me a Greek flag. I stood at center stage waving it to our nation and to the world. It was like a fairy tale, only better, because it was real. I had done something truly great, something historic, for my country.

  The final vote had been Athens, 66, Rome, 41, the largest margin of victory in a competition to host the Games in almost seventy years.

  Afterward, when I got a moment to speak to Samaranch alone, he seemed almost as happy as I was. Though he had never shown us any favoritism, I would never forget how helpful he had been from our first meeting and how he had set us on the right course. I had sensed a natural empathy for Athens from many IOC members. Samaranch was clearly delighted to see Greece given this chance.

  “Gianna,” he said, “you have to be sure you’re on the organizing committee.”

  “That is not going to happen,” I told him. “Not after what I went through to reach this moment.”

  He started shaking his head, indicating he didn’t want to hear it. “No, no, no,” he protested. “People will trust you.”

  Later I bumped into the President of NBC Sports, Dick Ebersol. “You know, Gianna,” h
e told me, as we both stood outside smoking a cigar, “Greece needs you to be on the organizing committee because the broadcasters and sponsors trust you.”

  When I hesitated, he said: “Don’t tell me ‘no.’ I don’t trust the others.”

  And they didn’t. History shows that for the following three years nothing happened, and Prime Minister Simitis had to call me back to save the day. The Olympic movement could only trust me.

  I couldn’t tell Ebersol the truth, that he was right not to trust the others. But there was no way he would understand my decision either. I had had enough of the political warfare and preferred to seek safe harbor at home. In truth, the Greek government had made it no choice at all. Even after the Prime Minister was convinced that we would win, he never mentioned the organizing committee to me or said a word to me about future involvement beyond Lausanne. Though he may have come to value and respect me, he couldn’t stand up to all his people who were jealous of me and resentful of my success.

  I had beaten Rome at its own game. I had come, I had seen, and I had conquered. Veni, vidi, vici! (Perhaps the headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer soon thereafter was my favorite: “In Battle to Host 2004 Olympics, It’s Athens’ Turn to Conquer Rome.”)

  A huge party followed at the Lausanne Palace Hotel—for which I wore a Yves Saint Laurent suit—where all our delegation and friends from other countries and cities danced into the early hours of the morning. We won the Games on September 5, 1997. Later, I realized that it had been exactly seven years to the day from my resignation from Parliament in which I promised to “find an occasion in the future to again serve my country.” And I had. Leave it to the Greek government to put a damper on our celebration. It seemed that they wanted to ensure that I wouldn’t return to Greece as some kind of conquering hero. The last thing they wanted was for the Greek people to think that people in service of their country might actually achieve something. Which is why the plane sent to take us home didn’t reach Lausanne until two days later. We arrived back in Athens unannounced and, rather conspicuously, too late for the nightly news. My father-in-law was waiting for us at the airport, and I was so moved to see him there that I went up and—out of deep respect—kissed his hand. “Why do you kiss my hand?” he asked. “It is you who have done it.”

  We were rushed to the Prime Minister’s building, where we joined a small VIP reception. The rest of the team was loaded onto a bus that trailed far behind us. My team considered it a deliberate snub and chose to remain on the bus rather than make a belated entrance to a reception where they weren’t wanted. Afterward, we all gathered together at Zappeion, where thousands of Greeks waited to celebrate with music and dancing. I danced the Cretan pentozali with unabashed pride and joy.

  The following year the government would honor me with a ceremony at which I was named Ambassador-at-Large by Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos. It was a belated gesture, but one that meant a great deal to me. For a Cretan girl who had dreamed of being an ambassador so as to serve her country, it brought my journey full circle. I had every reason to believe that the honor was the punctuation mark ending the final chapter of my public service. Then again, I have never been a prophet to rival the oracle of Delphi.

  SIC TRANSIT, GLORIA!

  I had told Prime Minister Simitis the truth when I said I was ready to return to my London home. That didn’t mean I was fully prepared for the wide range of emotions that lingered, however. While I shared the thrill of victory with the Greek people—even at a distance of some two thousand miles, their joy was palpable—I also felt the sting of betrayal. Though I had certainly been warned by my friends as well as by Samaranch, it pained me to discover firsthand that my worst enemies were not the Romans or anyone I had competed against but rather those who were supposed to be on my side. And it hurt to be cast aside, like a mother who gives birth and is not allowed to raise her own child.

  Returning to London, to the love of my family, proved an excellent balm for the emotional wounds I had suffered in the Olympic wars. And the next few years would prove to be among the most enjoyable of my life. My children were growing up wonderfully and were flourishing in school and in the city. I reengaged with Theodore’s business as well as with my work for the Dean’s Council at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

  And Theodore and I were far more active socially than we’d ever been. I do not consider myself a jet-setter; I am totally content being on my own. However, we have always enjoyed the company of important and interesting people. We entertained at home and enjoyed a wide range of friends, from Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to top businessmen and “legends” from around the world. We tried to mix and match our guests: having a Dean of Harvard sit next to a media mogul, or an opera singer sit next to an academic.

  We also traveled to visit new friends. The Agnelli brothers invited us to Turin once for the centennial celebrations of FIAT (where we met Henry Kissinger); on another occasion, the Emir of Qatar sought to meet us. In the lead-up to the 2004 Summer Games, I was invited twice to meet with French President Jacques Chirac. Far more quickly than I had expected, I felt revived by my life in London and remarkably content.

  In my defense, I tried to keep the Olympics at a distance. The entire inertia about them bled my heart. It was as if the Summer Games were a fantasy I had created, not a reality. Nobody from the government wanted me to have anything to do with the effort. But whenever I visited Greece, the public would show—like a wave—its gratitude and admiration. My poll ratings were sky high. I felt completely torn: How could the public treat me so well yet the government treat me so poorly?

  I had far too many friends in Greece, in the IOC, and in the international Olympic community not to be fully apprised of all the news from Athens. And the news was not good.

  Athens was not in motion; the dazzling plans we had set forth—our promise to the world—were gathering dust in desk drawers. These undertakings were not optional endeavors. We had signed contracts assuring the IOC that certain measures of progress would be reached by specific deadlines, and the Greek government was their guarantor. “You have to go back and take over,” callers would urge me, as if the choice was up to me. “What would you have me do?” I’d ask. “Get down on my knees and beg for the job? Say, ‘Please hire me.’?”

  It hadn’t surprised me that the Greek effort had stalled. Organizing the Olympics, as I would discover later, is a daunting journey that would have strained even Odysseus (or Ulysses as he was known in Latin). The job demanded a unique set of diverse talents. It required bringing together the business and political community to ensure the success of the Games. And it required an instinctive connection with the Greek people so as to keep them emotionally invested in the Olympics during the long seven-year wait for the torch to arrive in Athens. Because volunteers had become the backbone of all previous Olympics in recent memory, Athens 2004 would necessitate—from a country with no culture of volunteerism—thousands of its citizens answering a call to service if the Games we would host were to be a success. Many more Athenians would be asked to sacrifice comfort and convenience during the Summer Games to accommodate the needs of the non-Athenians who would invade the city, and obviously the effort required political consensus. The public had to rise to the challenge of creating what was in essence a new city.

  In Olympic parlance, running ATHOC, the organizational committee for the 2004 Summer Games, would be, at the very least, completing a triathlon on top of a marathon. I had run the bid committee and had faced all these issues. It was hard to imagine the ravages of a seven-year campaign. And, quite candidly, even though the Angelopoulos means made me an easy target for the Greek Socialists, I’m not sure that I could have succeeded in my mission without those means.

  All of which is to say it didn’t come as a shock when Athens failed to hit the ground running. It wasn’t until early 1998—six months after the triumph in Lausanne—that Simitis had a President in place for ATHOC. His choice, former New Democracy Mi
nister Stratis Stratigis, had some of the requisite skills demanded by the job, as he was multilingual and an attorney in Athens. But he was also regarded as something of a bon viveur—and he told terrific jokes—and his social agenda would eventually prove his undoing. The Prime Minister would later name Costas Bakouris, a successful Greek businessman who had worked in Switzerland, as CEO of the committee. The two-pronged leadership—Stratigis as the public face and Bakouris as the inside man—was recognition of the vast and varying requirements of the job.

  But I had always believed in the one-person rule, with one person responsible for building a great team, and from that team would come hundreds and thousands more, and eventually the whole country—Team Greece.

  Though I may not have been surprised by Athens’s early organizational missteps, I was certainly surprised to get a call—about a year after Lausanne—from Prime Minister Simitis’s office. I was informed that he and his wife, Dafni, would be visiting London and were hoping to visit with Theodore and me. Though I had trying relationships with many key players in his government, Simitis and I had maintained a civil one. And I understood why—for reasons of political expediency—he had needed to keep his distance. Though his call was entirely unexpected, I was happy to invite the couple to dine with us at the Old Rectory. I was quite curious as to what had brought the Prime Minister to my door. I couldn’t imagine it was purely a social call.

  But Simitis proved in no hurry to reveal his business. He took a tour of our home and played with my sons, entertaining them with some tricks he performed with his hands. Later on, when it was just the four of us at dinner in the big dining room (with our unique tapestries and a carpet once owned by Greta Garbo), the Prime Minister began to talk about the Olympic organizational effort. It was quite challenging, he conceded, and wasn’t proceeding as quickly or as smoothly as he had hoped. And then I got to experience a little déjà vu from a few years earlier. Only this time it was the Prime Minister calling on me face-to-face rather than the Sports Minister calling me on the phone. Simitis wanted to know if I might consider getting involved with the committee, perhaps from London as a Vice President with international responsibilities. What I thought was: “I led the bid that won the Olympics for Greece and now you ask me to return as a number two? Don’t you remember that the only number I like is number one?”