COUNTDOWN TO THE OLYMPICS – THE CHAOS CONTINUES

The stadium is still not finished. The roof is still not in place. The train link from the airport to the stadium will not be finished in time.

And now it looks like even if the concrete has set in time, and the roof is on, and the hoped-for crowds have managed to find their way to the stadium, they will have nothing to sit on.

SYDNEY, May 27 (AFP) - Athens organisers have cancelled a contract with an Australian firm to supply seats for the Olympic stadium just days after Canberra was accused of stirring up trouble, officials said Thursday.
New South Wales-based company Starena International signed a 2.4 million US dollar contract in April to supply 75,000 seats for the main Olympic arena, using its expertise of supplying seats for Sydney in 2000 and the summer Games in Atlanta in 1996.
Starena managing director, Noel Carty, said at the time it would take a "military-style operation" to supply the seats on time for the August 13 opening ceremony but he was confident Athens organisers would deliver a "fantastic Games".
The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported a decision on a replacement supplier was yet to be made, just 80 days before the Games begin.
The Premier of News South Wales state, Bob Carr, said he was disappointed Athens organisers had cancelled the contract.
He said he did not know if the decision related to recent criticism of Australia's decision to beef up its travel warning to Greece in the wake of explosions in Athens three weeks ago.
"I haven't advice on that," Mr Carr told public radio.
Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, chairwoman of the Athens organising committee, told a security conference this week that criticising security measures would only encourage extremists to take their chances with an attack on the summer Games.
She singled out Australia for issing the travel warning, saying: "I worry that harm is being done to the Olympic Games".
"The decision (to cancel the seats contract) had nothing to do with this issue," said an ATHOC spokesman on condition of anonymity, without offering further details on the reasons for the cancellation.
The stadium contract has now been handed to a Greek firm.
"We were told to carry out the (seats) contract ten days ago," said Costas Mathiopoulos of Greek firm Aktor, which leads the constructors' consortium in charge of works at the stadium.
"The seats are manufactured abroad and will start arriving next week. They will all have been installed around mid-July," Mathiopoulos told AFP.

Hands up all those who think a Greek company will be able to get the seats in the country, let alone in the stadium, in time for the games.

Normally I think the Olympics is one of the dullest sporting events on the planet, confining my viewing to the 10 seconds of action that is the Mens 100m, but this year it’s shaping up to be a real cracker, for all the wrong reasons.

I think Athens should host it for ever. This is much more fun than the dull Sydney Olympics where nothing went wrong at all.