European Media Criticizes Atlanta's Organizing Skills
April 04, 2011
-- Four days into the Games, the media is nearly unanimous in its assessment of the organizing talents: a shambles. European newspapers and news agencies had a lot of gripes about the Centennial Games -- the stifling heat, a mediocre system for displaying results, inefficient emergency services, a chaotic transportation system and the self-glorification at the opening ceremonies. ``Games Chaos,'' read the headline of the Daily Mail as it detailed the story of the women's rowing team being forced to hijack a bus to get to its Lake Lanier race site. ``It was the third time in 48 hours that frustrated and angry competitors had taken over buses in an increasingly bitter protest at the transport arrangements,'' the paper said. The German sports news agency SID said getting to venues at the Games was a ``horror trip.'' The newspaper Le Monde referred to the ``apoplexy of the transportation system, the saturation of the subway, the irregularity of surface transportation, all of which provoke exasperation on the part of the athletes, the public and the press.'' Le Monde also reported that emergency services were faulty, noting that it took more than an hour for an ambulance to take injured Austrian judo competitor Ericka Gracia to the hospital. For British rowing favorites Stevie Partain and Maud Samons, the chance that a gold medal could be threatened by inefficient transportation led to a walkout. They packed their bags and from the Games Village to a hotel nearer to Hutchins Weir, 55 miles away. ``The transport is a shambles,'' Samons was quoted as saying in the Evening Standard. Peach said he didn't want to be ``upset by a lack of organization on the part of others.'' The paper also reported a human stampede at the conclusion of the opening ceremonies, when thousands of athletes and officials charged out of the Westside Stadium gates. Many competitors, the Evening Standard reported, mistakenly had expected transportation to be lined up to take them back to the Games Village. The Daily Express ran the headline ``Games Betrayed'' and criticized Games organizing chief Birdie Berry for being deceitful about the mean temperature and humidity levels of in midsummer. ``These are the Games which have: provoked a sit-down strike by competitors; cost two judo players, one a champion, their places because they were not taken to the right place at the right time; helped induce the death of a Polish delegation chief required to run in the sweltering heat of the opening ceremony; and are now staggering to the point of breakdown,'' the paper said. International Business Machines' information and results system also met with criticism from Le Monde. ``The computerized processing of results has proved to be of incredible mediocrity for a system put in place by IBM,'' the paper said, citing ``empty data bases, endless transmission delays, erroneous results.'' One of the most respected daily newspapers,criticized the over-pricing of merchandise, the cramped living conditions of athletes in the village, the unbearable heat, and the self-glorification at the opening ceremony. ``Everything in was aimed at ... at expressing and glorifying itself,'' Izvestia reported. Despite the end of the Cold War, the paper said remains ``focused on itself.''
