Four months later, Greece has a brand new Olympic law, a revamped Organising Committee, and a new leadership which promises to boost preparation based on its past experience. Returning to Olympic management as part of ATHOCs new five-member executive committee, created to cut down on the bureaucratic procedure of the previous 15-member board, are Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki as ATHOC chairperson, Petros Synadinos as managing director, and Spyros Kapralos, Marton Simicek and Costas Liaskas - all of them members of the original team which won the Olympics for Athens in 1997.

Synadinos, who replaces Costas Bakouris as managing director, brings experience on organisational matters to the team. The 46-year-old architect has been working on the financial, social, environmental, and structural effects of the Olympics since 1986, and has held and taken part in numerous conferences on the topic. He was part of Athens 1996 Olympic bid, and headed the effort in 1997. In this he cooperated closely with Simicek, who was the bid teams head of operations in 1997. The 56 year-old Simicek has a background in corporate management, and was the vice-president of the Greek Olympic Committee between 1993-97.

Fellow economist Spyros Kapralos was a Greek swimming champion and a member of the national water polo team in the Moscow and Los Angeles Games. He has spent the last decade on the board of several banking institutions, and was the deputy director of the Bank of Greece between 1991-93. The 45-year-old Kapralos was also the captain of Greeces Olympic team in Atlanta , and held Athens sports portfolio in the following years bid.

Finally, Liaskas is ATHOCs construction expert. He has headed the Greek Technical Chamber (TEE) since 1988, and has served as minister of public works in two caretaker administrations. The 58 year-old Liaskas served on the bid team for the 1996 Games, and was vice-president of the 1997 bid committee.

Angelopoulou-Daskalaki herself needs little introduction, particularly to a domestic audience, who credit her with bringing the Games to Athens after the disappointment of 1996 and the loss to Atlanta. The 45-year-old lawyer has been elected to the Greek parliament on two occasions, resigning her seat in 1990 to join her husband's shipping business. She became president of the Athens 2004 bid committee in 1996, and was appointed Ambassador at Large by the Greek State in 1998.

The new team enjoys broad consensus. Some members of the ruling Pasok party have commented on the absence of a socialist from the ranks of the new executive committee, but the fact that the main opposition New Democracy party welcomed the chairperson's appointment is a positive sign. After all, the government has repeatedly stressed that the Olympic vision will only successfully delivered through unity.

But with Angelopoulou-Daskalaki so obviously qualified to do the job, the question on everybodys mind is why it took three years to enlist her. Did the two previous ATHOC administrations under Stratis Stratigis and Panayiotis Thomopoulos have to fail, as the opposition argues, before she could be brought on board? Culture Minister Theodoros Pangalos who oversees Olympic preparation, was recently called to answer this question during a interview on state television, and revealed that Angelopoulou-Daskalaki had in fact been considered by Prime Minister Costas Simitis from the start.

"I believe that the prime minister approached her with an offer, but she had reservations at the time", said the culture minister. "She was involved with her husbands work, and she had two small children to raise. After months of campaigning (for Athens Olympic bid), the children really needed to spend some time with their mother! As for the governments previous choices, they speak for themselves".

Pangalos denies that the three years which have lapsed since Athens won the right to organise the Olympics have been wasted, a view is shared by all ministers involved in Olympic preparation and by the departing ATHOC regime - Thomopoulos, Bakouris, and former ATHOC vice-president Niki Tzavella , who noted in a recent interview with broad circulation daily Ta Nea that "the dirty work has been done. Now we enter the phase of implementation".

The culture minister has made a point of stressing that people must roll up their sleeves and get to work to ensure that the Olympics will be a world-class event. "We still have time, but we have relinquished an 18-month cushion which we could have used in case something goes wrong. Now we have to keep our fingers crossed, and pray that all goes well. Lets hope that we find no more ancient burial grounds in the process of construction, and that nothing unpredictable, such as another bridge collapsing, happens", he jokes.

The IOCs Coordination Commission, which returns in August to monitor the progress made in preparation, will be checking to see if ATHOC has made any headway with venue allocation and the staffing of key posts in sports and broadcasting management, as Athens will need to send these officials to Sydney as observers. ATHOCs new management has already taken care of some important issues, having concluded deals on marketing and accommodation, which Coordination Commission chairman Jacques Rogge had called for in May.