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The 106th meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), held in Lausanne, faced with a big challenge: choosing a city for hosting the 2004 Olympic Games from among Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Istanbul, Lille, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Seville, San Juan, Stockholm and Saint Petersburg.
Hosting 2004 Games for Athens is far different from 1896, in which Olympics was held in the city from April 6-15. At that time, there was no match in other parts of the world for Athens, which was the first city hosting the new round of Olympic Games. No sports federations had been set up then, and the informed people were limited to those who taught at sports schools or performed extraordinary acts in European circuses.
In the IOC meeting, 14 experts, including deputy head of International Olympic Committee Marc Holder, gathered in Lausanne where they chose five cities at the final stage, only one of which would finally be selected to host the 28th round of Summer Games: Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Rome and Stockholm.
Rome, Stockholm and Athens each have hosted the games once; Athens in 1896, Stockholm in 1912 and Rome in 1960. These European cities were in fact each others’ rivals. Experts believed that Athens was very likely to be selected since celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Olympics were held in Atlanta, U.S.A., despite the fact that 12 years before in 1984, Olympic Games had been held in Los Angeles.
Finally, Athens was selected to host the 2004 Olympic Games. This is while it has been heard that the works are not progressing as scheduled by a proposed plan and that there are some debates in this regard.
Now the important issue is that when Olympics is held in a European country, a large number of tourists, officially or unofficially, will travel to the host country during the Games. For example, in the 27th Summer Olympics, about 10,744 people [7060 men and 3684 women] traveled to Atlanta from 197 countries. During the Games, 271 athletic events were held.
For 15 days of Olympic life, many issues count: The first time which Athens hosted Olympics, there was a big problem later solved by a Greek man named Georgios Averoff, who paid the costs needed for building the giant U-shaped stadium. Located in a beautiful street, that globally-acclaimed stadium has now turned into a museum.
The situation in 2004 would be a bit different: the country needs a large Olympic Village, transportation facilities, airport, sports installations, nutrition facilities, medical services, public relations organizations, media, TV and radio stations. These are the problems that should be solved by a precise, hardworking and vigilant organization which deals with the issue.
Once Sydney 2000 Games have closed, Iran needs to compile a comprehensive plan for the four-year period left to the next Olympic Games. It is very rare that a champion can take part in four Olympic Games, because many new rivals are appearing and technical progress is taking place more rapidly and systematically.
From among 33 athletic fields, Iran is stronger in two: freestyle wrestling and weightlifting. In other fields, for example gymnastics, athletics and swimming, Iran has taken steps, but it is yet to be considered as a powerful rival by other countries. We should remember that being a powerful rival does not mean only winning medals. The fact is that Iran has not had an eye-catching progress in football, basketball, beach volleyball, indoor volleyball, field hockey, handball, tennis, judo, cycling, boxing, canoeing, table tennis, water-polo, shooting and archery, modern penthalon, fencing, equestrian and badminton.
Facilities should be prepared in sports clubs for the youth, talents should be identified and trained, and then the nation will be able to see the positive results of such measures in the next four years. In the theoretical field, we have to organize seminars after Sydney 2000 Games to speak about shortcomings in our sports activities and then endeavor to remove them.