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| Day -1, Thursday 12 August 2004 |
| Carl Lewis under the Acropolis |
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| The Olympic Flame spent the night of Thursday 12 August on the Acropolis. |
| The Good... |
- The departing US Ambassador to Greece, Tom Miller, and 9-time Olympic gold medal winner Carl Lewis were two of the 266 torchbearers in today's leg of the Torch Relay, that concluded at the Acropolis last night.
- The Olympic Flame spent the night on the Acropolis.
- This was the day of arrivals. Tony Blair came to Athens, former US president George Bush sailed into Piraeus, and a whole bunch of other dignitaries started descending unto the city. There were a total of 839 flights in and out of Athens International Airport, 231 of which were general aviation flights.
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| The Bad... |
- The doping controversies continued on Thursday. Late at night, it became known that Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, the Greek Olympic champion sprinters, failed to appear for a scheduled drug test. The IOC doping agency was conferring into the night to decide what to do. On Wednesday, Torri Edwards, a top American sprinter was banned for two years for failing to take a drug test.
- The program director and the technical director of the Hellenic Radio and Television (ERT), the Greek boadcaster responsible for the TV coverage of these Games were summarily fired yesterday morning, after a short circuit in the control room on Wednesday night caused a 30-minute interruption in the boadcast of the Greece-South Korea football game from Thessaloniki.
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| nyloo's daily Olympic Diary |
The doping controversies continued, the Flame reached the Acropolis and the hotels and cruise ships started filling up with celebrities and dignitaries on Thursday.
The Greek media were frantic on Thursday night after Kostas Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, the Sydney men's 200 m gold medalist and women's 100 m silver medalist, respectively, failed to appear for a drug test, which sent the IOC doping authorities into a late-night session to decide what to do. The athletes were invited to appear before the committee Friday morning. News breaks with the latest allegation and gossip on the affair continued into the night.
The Flame went from Piraeus to the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion, at the southern tip of the Attica peninsula, and then back to Athens. By 8.30 pm, the Torch Relay had reached the edge of the Acropolis, and Carl Lewis run the last 200 meters to the entrance of the monument. There he passed the torch to Niki Bakoyianni (no relation to Athens' mayor), a women's high jump silver medalist in Atlanta, in 1996, who run up to the Parthenon.
In a brief ceremony, that included 4 very brief speeches and was attended by the Prime Minister, the mayor of Athens, and the Organizing Committee President, the flame lit a caldron, and will remain on the Acropolis overnight.
Everything seems to be running fine. There have been no reports of mishaps, delays, malfunctions or anything of the sort, yet. Traffic runs smoothly, Athenian drivers are beginning to adapt to the presence of a big old train, called a tram, in their midst, without bumping into it every 200 meters, like the first two weeks of its operation.
Really, nothing newsworthy is going on. Oh sure, the heir to the Norwegian throne arrived today, and also the British Prime Minister, whose lodgings remain top secret, and the luxury yacht that took former US President George Bush on a northern Aegean cruise sailed into Piraeus harbor, etc. But, who cares?
No news from Athens. That's good news.
Let the Games begin, dammit!
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