ATHOC
The ATHOC was the organizing committee for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and was the first organizing committee for the Olympic Games to take on the organization of the 2004 Summer Paralympics . The name is short for Ath en O rganizing C ommittee. The organizing committee was chaired by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki .
At the beginning of the preparations, the organizing committee was rated positively because it was able to bring the games to the Greek capital after the loss to Atlanta in 1997. However, the sluggish preparation and the construction projects that were only completed shortly before the start of the games led to strong criticism. The ATHOC struggled with local residents' protests, skirmishes and legal disputes over the award of construction contracts and expropriations, which led to considerable delays in the construction work schedule. Therefore, the IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch threatened the ATHOC with the withdrawal of the games, which could not have been implemented. As a result, more and more cost-saving measures were taken in the building projects, which continued to be sluggish. An underground connection to the Olympic Stadium was discarded. The ATHOC also deceived the coordination commission of the IOC, chaired by Denis Oswald , by letting construction vehicles work for the visit during an inspection, which were then withdrawn again.
The ATHOC justified the austerity measures with a view to the position of Jacques Rogges with the comment "[one would] adapt the capacities to the needs". In addition, the slow pace of progress was justified by the transport manager of the ATHOC Panagiotis Protopsaltis with the sentence "The Greeks are strange - they have to let each project mature first." The President of the Organizing Committee Angelopoulos-Daskalaki commented on the problems with the statement "We are currently learning to work under strict time constraints".
The ATHOC budget was 1.962 billion euros. 590 million euros of this money came from television revenues, ticket sales brought in 347 million euros and license income from local sponsors brought 197 million euros. In addition, the ATHOC contributed around 150 million euros to the IOC's income from the TOP international sponsorship program, which comprises 12 large companies. Twelve percent of the budget came from the Greek state. The ATHOC closed with a profit, even if the total investments were above the planned amounts.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c The Shrunken Games . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 2002 ( online ).
- ↑ FOCUS: 2.3 billion euros in revenue , accessed on June 16, 2008
- ↑ Expensive intoxication . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 2003 ( online ).