We kept in contact with all of the members after their visits. We sent handwritten thank-you notes to everyone we encountered along the way, a lesson I had learned in business. As an added way of saying “thank you,” we sent each of them a copy of their home newspaper from the date of their birth. We also kept them updated on our progress. Our courtship was continuous, an attempt to connect to the human being inside the IOC voter. We wanted to engage everyone. It didn’t matter which city a member initially supported.
When the contest eventually reached Lausanne, one candidate would be eliminated after each ballot until a city captured more than 50 percent of the vote. So while delegates might be committed to our rivals on the first ballot, we urged them to support Athens—once their first choice was eliminated—on the second or third ballot. I remember one delegate saying, “I am committed to Stockholm first and Cape Town second.” When I heard that, I replied, “Okay, then commit to us third.” We monitored the preference, known or presumed, of every single delegate and had a good idea at what point—if ever—he or she might consider casting a vote for Greece.
Stripped down to its essentials, our strategy was straightforward: one day at a time, IOC member by IOC member, NOC by NOC, sponsor by sponsor, broadcaster by broadcaster, journalist by journalist—all governed by an obsessive attention to detail that ensured our preparedness. We never postured as champions; we simply put ourselves out there, without pretensions, as worthy aspirants. We were prepared, but we didn’t want our opposition to see us coming. As the Chinese General Sun Tzu understood more than two thousand years ago, “The element of surprise is key.”
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As we worked hard, presented our plans, planted our olive trees, ate our Greek feasts, and danced to our beloved and diverting Greek melodies, I could sense the momentum growing behind our bid. There was an emerging recognition that, in the wake of Atlanta, Greece might offer a healing balm for the Olympic Games. Nebiolo may have begun to suspect that Rome’s prospects of hosting in 2004, seemingly inevitable a year earlier, were fading. Which may account for his actions—and mistakes—when the Sixth World Championships in Athletics were held in Athens August 1–10, 1997, just one month before the scheduled IOC vote in Lausanne.
Those world championships provided us with a chance to showcase our organizational skills and our Olympic plans. We won over fans with a stirring Opening Ceremony created by Vangelis, the Oscar-winning composer of the score for Chariots of Fire. We won over journalists by accommodating the two most critical needs of working reporters: a media center that broke new ground in ease of Internet access, and excellent, bountiful varieties of food.
And official visitors could come to Zappeion, where they’d see a mock-up of our proposed Olympic village as well as a full-sized model of the living quarters.
But those world championships were also an occasion for Nebiolo to shine. As President of IAAF, he still commanded center stage. But from that enviable position, he demonstrated a shocking lack of grace and good manners. First, after an early and unimportant session drew only sparse attendance, Nebiolo publicly criticized Greeks for failing to show up and suggested that the Greek people weren’t really great sportsmen. The Greek people responded to the insult by filling the Olympic stadium for every remaining session. Nebiolo’s second mistake occurred in the privacy of the VIP area of the stadium, which wasn’t very private at all considering that so many IOC delegates were camped there between major events. After an Italian woman won Italy’s only gold medal of the meet, I walked over to Nebiolo and extended my hand to congratulate him. There was no doubt in my mind or that of any of the dozens of witnesses that he saw my hand before he turned his back on me.
Nebiolo was always more feared than loved. And Greece’s flawless performance in hosting a major competition, coupled with his classless acts, may have helped tip the race in our favor. (If so, he would gain a measure of redemption when, in 1999, just a few months before his death, he helped his hometown of Turin orchestrate an upset over favored Sion, Switzerland, to win the 2006 Winter Olympics.)
When I visited Prime Minister Simitis right after the successful completion of the Sixth World Championships in Athletics, I told him—for the very first time—that I truly believed Athens would prevail in the bid for the 2004 Summer Olympics. I could tell from his smile, no longer just tolerant or bemused but bordering on exuberant, that he believed it too.
SHARING A SMILE WITH THE PRIME MINISTER in the late summer of 1997, I reflected on how far we had journeyed together. I understood how taxing it had been for him, in the face of unrelenting opposition from his own people, to appoint me, a wealthy conservative who resided in London, to such a prominent post. And he had proved steadfast, if not always sufficiently forceful, in his support. All the same, his support had not inured me from the machinations of and malicious attacks by the hacks and hatchet men surrounding him.
I had decided that win or lose I had endured enough. I had not only led this effort without break—at considerable sacrifice to me and my family—but had bankrolled it too. I was worn out, exhausted by the constant fighting and the mean-spiritedness of my political enemies. I would proceed to Switzerland and, hopefully, win the bid and the glory for Greece. “I will do my job,” I assured Simitis at our final meeting before I left for the IOC confab. “But I’m fed up with all of it. After that, I just want to go home.”
What ensued following that conversation only strengthened my intentions. I received a call from Theodoros Tsoukatos, one of the Prime Minister’s top advisers, requesting an urgent meeting before I departed for Lausanne. After courteously opening the conversation, he immediately inquired as to my plans after Lausanne. Having just informed his boss of my plans, I didn’t understand the question and told him so.
“Well, will you form a new political party?” he asked.
“It never crossed my mind,” I said.
“Are you sure?” he said, insultingly. “What do your people in New Democracy say?”
“I don’t have any people,” I said with growing irritation. “I left Parliament seven years ago. I have a different life now. I didn’t do this so that I could run for office. I did it for my country.”
Tsoukatos’s questions and attitude were particularly galling because my approach had been completely nonpartisan. I had met with every political party along with every interest group as part of an effort to create a broad consensus in support of our Olympic quest. And it had worked. Polls showed that 95 percent of Athenians backed our bid.
But Tsoukatos wasn’t really listening to me. He and his cronies obviously couldn’t get past the fact that my face was all over the newspapers and television in Greece and abroad. If you were in the news, you had to have a hidden political agenda. It never crossed their minds that I was in the news because I was working so hard to achieve something for our country.
Definitely it didn’t cross my mind that I should run again for office after my resignation.
That brief encounter—more than a decade before Greece’s economic debacle would become front-page news around the world—is a microcosm of the failure of leadership that has haunted Greece. At a time when Greece was poised for a historic triumph that could rebrand and rejuvenate our country, the politicians’ focus was on my possible political ambitions. Greek governments of all political persuasions have made public service and leadership barely an afterthought.
The priority of Greece’s politicians had been to maintain the party in power rather than to do what’s best for the country. Decisions were made on the basis of one consideration: “Will it help me or hurt me at the ballot box come the next election?” That approach is shameful and the results have been tragic for the Greek people.
Despite my final dispiriting clash with this close associate of Simitis, I remained focused on the mission ahead. I was aware that IOC elections had proved unpredictable in the past and a single stumble could be costly. I wouldn’t let up until my job was done, until the Athens 2004 bid team
had completed our final presentation to the IOC. Then our hopes and dreams would be at the mercy of the 107 IOC delegates who would cast their votes.
In Lausanne, I kept campaigning right up until the end, courting anyone and everyone I encountered. But there was one meeting that I deemed most critical of all, and it was one that, by IOC rules, I wasn’t permitted to attend. It was time once again for Theodore to step in and make another “unofficial” courtesy call. He sought ex-King Constantine’s help, this time to arrange a meeting with South African President Nelson Mandela.
Theodore visited Mandela, accompanied by the IOC’s South African delegate, at his quarters in the Lausanne Palace Hotel. He would later tell me that Mandela welcomed him warmly. Gentle and soft-spoken, he was not prone to posturing or to the kind of political double-talk that Theodore deplores. Mandela projected a quiet strength and his wisdom and integrity shone through. Theodore told him how much we admired him personally and that we’d been impressed by his country’s first Olympic campaign.
Our hope was that the President felt some rapport with the under-dogs from Athens and that—if Cape Town was eliminated before Athens—he might throw his support our way. We would have been genuinely happy to do the same for Cape Town. But in truth, while Athens had widespread support from delegates around the world, we didn’t control them. Mandela, by contrast, commanded a huge influence over Cape Town supporters, particularly the delegates from the African continent.
It’s easy to misjudge such moments—especially in a relatively brief encounter—and to confuse graciousness for support. But at the very least, Theodore felt he had established, on Greece’s behalf, a bond with the South African President. As it turned out, Cape Town was the last contender eliminated before the contest came down to Athens vs. Rome. We’ll never know if Mandela said anything on our behalf to Cape Town voters. All we do know now is that in the final tally Athens won fourteen of Cape Town’s twenty votes.
The connection that Theodore felt with Mandela proved to be genuine. Later that year, during my visit to South Africa, signs were posted everywhere reading, “Congratulations Athens.” Cape Town was the only competing city to recognize me and my country in so public a fashion. By contrast, I thought if I were to visit Rome I would have to don armor. I met President Mandela at his home, a special honor for me and a chance to offer my heartfelt thanks for his extraordinarily generous spirit.
Years later, during the 2004 Olympic global torch relay, I was totally occupied with the Summer Games and wouldn’t dare leave Athens. Theodore, however, was luckier and traveled on our private jet to many countries where the relay was taking place. He savored the warm welcome of the Olympic torch in Beijing, Cape Town, and Rio de Janeiro. President Mandela was a torchbearer in South Africa, and he invited Theodore to visit the cell on Robben Island where he was kept prisoner for twenty-seven years.
We wouldn’t have been Greek if those final days in Lausanne had passed without a political crisis. The Prime Minister and I had agreed that we would keep the involvement of politicians to a minimum, especially since politicians had been overrepresented in Athens’s doomed bid for the Centennial Games. Mayor Avramopoulos was required by IOC protocol to speak, but he was brief. Simitis confined his own role to a short videotaped message from our headquarters at Zappeion. But once Athens appeared to have a winning hand, some politicians wanted to claim the spotlight. George Papandreou, the future Prime Minister who was then Foreign Minister, not only insisted on joining us in Lausanne but also demanded to be part of the presentation team. I told the Foreign Minister “no,” and refused to rewrite our script. (Remember, we had rehearsed it for weeks and timed it down to the second.)
Outraged by my rejection, Papandreou called Simitis, who apparently told him, “This is Mrs. Angelopoulos’s decision.” Still not satisfied, he appealed to Samaranch, who had been well briefed and told him, “This is Gianna’s decision.” (Papandreou was particularly sore that he couldn’t gain a place in our lineup when a twenty-six-year-old “kid” he had never heard of was on the panel. That “kid,” Michalis Zacharatos, had played a key role throughout the campaign and would become ATHOC’s press spokesman during the Olympics. Sixteen years after Lausanne, he continues to work as an associate and adviser to my husband and me.)
Once again, I was reminded how politics makes for strange bedfel-lows. There they all were with me in Lausanne: the Mayor who had tried to block my appointment and, later, to force my resignation; the Sports Minister who had become so irate that he had lost all confidence in me; and the Foreign Minister who, when I desperately needed support, hadn’t given me the time of day. Fouras even promised that he would shave off his moustache if Athens carried the day.
A political flap was to be expected. But given the amount of effort I always invested in looking my very best in public, I would never have imagined that I would also face a little couture crisis. I had given careful thought to our Athens team uniforms, particularly the color combinations, and had personally selected the men’s outfit: dark blue trousers, white jackets with our Athens emblem over the heart, Greek blue shirts, and dark blue ties with a pattern of golden olive wreaths intertwined. Samaranch had been enthusiastic about the idea of matching uniforms for the Athens team, unaware that I didn’t have one and certainly couldn’t secure one in time for the meeting. But I always travel with more outfits than I need so that I could make my choice depending on the vagaries of the weather or the occasion. And I don’t know why, but I always play with the colors white and blue—the colors of the Greek flag.
On this occasion my extensive wardrobe saved the day. I had an Yves Saint Laurent outfit that appeared to match the men’s, and once my British dresser sewed on the Athens emblem, everybody from Athens looked like they were on the same team.
Bibi Samaranch, the wife of the IOC President, would tell me later that there was an audible buzz—“Ah, Mrs. Angelopoulos wears the uniform”—when I entered with my team for our presentation. It was only later when her husband murmured his approval of our uniform approach that she informed him that any woman could recognize that mine wasn’t exactly a perfect match, that it was from a decidedly finer realm of fashion than the men’s in terms of fabric and cut.
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The night before the final presentation our team had dined together and, afterward, were sitting around the Beau Rivage Hotel suite where Theodore and I were staying, all trying our very best to relax. Our talking points, from the past year and the next morning, were racing through my mind: “Athens for the athletes”; “Optimism is our way of life”; “Ecology is a Greek concern”; “Greece will be good for the Games”; “The marathon on its original route”; “Greece keeps its promises. We are making progress every day”; “Athens is in motion!”
As nervous as I was, I was genuinely convinced that we had done everything possible to prepare for this moment. And everyone on my team seemed optimistic or, at the very least, was pretending to be for my benefit. I called George Stephanopoulos, who was back in the United States, for one last consultation, and he advised me to smoke my evening cigar and then go to bed early so as to make sure I got a good night’s sleep.
I had just lit up a big Cuban cigar when a consultant from a high-powered British public relations firm I had hired strode up to me with an air of self-importance. The firm had proved clueless and, as a result, I had wound up relying more heavily on Stephanopoulos and the other savvy Americans. I had wanted to fire the Brits, but Theodore suggested I keep them around just in case I found some use for them later. It may have been the only dubious advice Theodore gave me during the entire campaign.
The Brit was waving a piece of paper in front of me and saying, “Mrs. A, I have this statement for you to sign off on.” I couldn’t imagine what statement could possibly require my attention at that moment. He explained that he had prepared a concession statement in case Athens lost the vote the next day.
Everyone else in the room, all of whom knew me far better than this man,
began to retreat to a safe distance, eyeing the chairs that could be toppled and the ashtrays that could become weapons. Just as they expected, I erupted. “For one and a half years, I have dreamed of this moment and I have devoted myself totally so that we can win. Tonight I need to believe that we will win. How dare you come to me now, when I have to be fully prepared mentally and physically, to remind me that we may actually lose and that I should be a gracious loser? Go stick your statement up your ass!” (Years later at a posh London party, I would meet the CEO of the company that sent me that idiot, and the memory so infuriated me that I gave him a piece of my mind. “Your company gave us nothing,” I said. I could see hatred in his eyes, but I didn’t care. It was the truth.)
On the morning of the presentation, all omens were good. The final presentations were to take place in a hall at the Palais de Beaulieu convention center. While the IOC had discreetly covered the name of that hall, I knew it was the Salle d’Athènes—the Athens Room—so I felt like we had a home-field advantage. Moreover, we had drawn the third hour, the final presentation of the morning right before the lunch break. All the delegates should be wide-awake by that hour and, hopefully, attentive. By the afternoon session, they might be drowsy after a fine Swiss lunch.
Our presentation went off with only one minor hitch. Nikos Kaklamanakis, an Atlanta Olympic gold medalist in windsurfing and a three-time world champion, appeared to lose his voice during his presentation. But Nikos was handsome and charming. And most folks tend to be more forgiving of verbal stumbles by athletes than those of politicians. We also got away with bending the rules by promising something that hadn’t been in our original bid plan. The Lausanne meeting was the first time we mentioned our plans for the first-ever international Olympic torch relay connecting all five continents, but everybody seemed to love the idea and nobody noticed or at least commented upon the breach.
My Greek Drama: Life, Love, and One Woman's Olympic Effort to Bring Glory to Her Country Page 18