ATHENS, 10 August 2003 — The Panathenean Stadium, venue of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, hosted an archery test event yesterday after serving mainly as a tourist venue for the past century.
The elegant marble horseshoe will provide a grandstand finish for the 2004 marathon and also host the archery while athletics moves to the modern Olympic Stadium north of the city.
“We’ve not seen anything like this,” Australian archer Jade Beatty told Reuters after athletes had entered the area through grand iron gates after descending through a 19th century tunnel stone bored into the hillside.
“We came in and it was like a scene from (the film) Gladiators, it was very exciting,” she said.
Watching over the archers’ shooting line is an ancient statue of Hermes uncovered during excavations in 1895 and given pride of place inside the track. “It is something else being here,” said Greek champion Evangelia Psara.
“The feeling of competing at the Panathenean is unique.”
The rows of empty white marble benches were showing their age yesterday as weeds poked out between cracks in the stone and only a handful of spectators turned out in the midsummer sunshine. But International Archery Federation chief James Easton was confident that more than 7,000 spectators would be watching the arrows fly next year. “It’s a great honor for archery to be staged at the Panathenean, the stadium of the first modern Olympics,” said Easton.
Organizers to Investigate
German Rowing Illness
Organizers of next year’s Olympic Games promised yesterday a full investigation after Germany’s junior rowing team withdrew from a test event last week following a salmonella infection. Athens Organizing Committee (ATHOC) managing director Marton Simitsek expressed his regrets after tests confirmed the German team had suffered from gastroenteritis caused by a salmonella infection.
Rowing officials confirmed last week that about 60 members of the German team were confined to their hotel after coming down with a salmonella-related illness last Saturday, possibly caught before they arrived in Greece a day earlier.
The team, who were to have taken part in the world junior rowing championships held last week at the Skinias Olympics rowing complex about 30 km north east of Athens, did not take part in the tests and returned to Germany.
“The responsible authorities are investigating all possible sources of the infection, however experts are focusing their attention on the hygiene and dietary conditions at the lodgings of the German delegation,” Simitsek said in a statement.
