Olympics: Games return to their ancient birthplace

By MATTHEW BEARD and FERDINAND KOENIG

ATHENS - The Olympic Games returns to its ancient birthplace tonight with a celebration likely to be the most spectacular in the history of the world's greatest sporting event.

A worldwide television audience of more than four billion is expected to tune in to the multi-million pound opening ceremony in a nation infected with Games' fever.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and former US President George Bush senior will be among a host of VIPs at the newly-built Olympic stadium for the three-hour ceremony, which will be protected by unprecedented levels of security.

Details of the ceremony were also meant to be closely guarded but emerged to the organisers' frustration over recent days following Tuesday's dress rehearsal featuring a troupe of 4,000 performers in front of 70,000 locals.

The concept of the event will focus on Greek history and culture. But the organisers have promised those with shorter attention spans that it will be "no lecture" and in a sop to the Olympic movement's championing of youth have booked the Dutch club DJ, Tiesto.

An array of audacious stunts will start with the flooding of around one third of the stadium's floor to create a temporary lake. To the sound of 400 drummers producing a mock human heartbeat a "comet" will race across the 80m-high roof of the stadium and crash into the lake, igniting the interlocking Olympic rings on its surface.

A child will cross the lake in a boat before a centaur - half man, half horse - hurls a javelin into the water at the point where a Greek figurine rises and turns into a parade of floats bearing mythological figures.

The final figure, a pregnant woman, will step into the water to set off a cascade of lights followed by a projection of a strand of DNA linking the first Olympians to modern competitors.

One of the few details yet to emerge is the identity of the person who will run the final leg of the Olympic torch which yesterday set off from the Athens port of Piraeus aboard a replica ancient warship.

In a level of audience participation to rival the Rocky Horror Picture Show, the spectators have been taught to clap along to the heartbeat and a Greek wave, a Games version of the Mexican original, will ripple round the stands.

As originators of the Games, Greece traditionally leads the parade of nations around the stadium while the host nation brings up the rear.

But on this occasion the locals will be treated to a double helping of national pride as the parade is led by the national flag with the squad emerging into the stadium last to a roar that is expected to be heard several districts away.

The Games' 202 national teams will circuit the stadium alphabetically according to the Greek alphabet.

Due to its prominence, the opening ceremony is considered a high -priority among security experts working with a budget that has tripled to £750m since the last Games.

Armed police will protect the VIPs, security experts will patrol the city with briefcase-size sensors to detect "dirty bombs" and 80 CCTV cameras at the stadium are among 1,500 newly installed in the city.

Enthusiasm for the Games among Greeks has grown in recent weeks following years of reports of budget overruns and delays to building projects. Organisers' concerns over ticket sales will have eased on Wednesday when more than 90,000 tickets were sold within Greece, bringing the total sold to 2.7 million out of 5.3 million tickets.

Attendances to blue riband events such as the sprints are expected to be high but organisers' are preparing to hand out thousands of tickets to local schoolchildren to avoid the embarrassment of television pictures showing near-empty stadia at less popular events.

However the growing consensus in Athens yesterday was that the Games would provide Greeks - a nation recently buoyed by winning Euro 2004 in Portugal - with an opportunity to show its modern face to the world.

Student Bertos Kainikh, 25, said: "I've just come back from 22 days travelling and have arrived in a changed city. I left Greece and have returned to a European capital! The achievement is huge and I'm very proud of what has been accomplished. For us this is a matter not only of national pride, but also national identity."

Giannis Voulvis, 24, a post-graduate student and Games volunteer said: "I really think these Olympics will usher in a new idealism into the Olympic movement. Seeing so many different nationalities and cultures in the Olympic village is a wonderful new experience. I hope their impressions of Greece will be positive. The Olympics are a wonderful opportunity for cultures to mix."

However pensioner Nikos Tatakis, 88, was less impressed. He said: "These Games have been nothing but fuss and noise. So much money has been wasted, much of it ending up in the pockets of those who surround the Government. I can't wait until it's all over, then finally I can watch some proper news on the TV."

- INDEPENDENT