Full moon beams down on Athens one-year countdown

Bathed by the good-omen glow of a full moon over the famed Acropolis, Athens on Wednesday started the one-year countdown to the return of the Olympic Games to their birthplace.

Athens organisers go into the final 366 days -- 2004 is a leap year -- confident preparations are back on track after criticism of a slow start.

"There is a full moon tonight. That is a very good omen," said security guard Antonis Kasrotis as he watched the city's Olympic clock near the main Games stadium tick to "366" at midnight (2100 GMT on Tuesday).

"The Olympics are coming home. I've waited all my life for this."

Although International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Athens officials have said the worst is behind them, a major Greek newspaper warned on the eve of the countdown the country risked global "humiliation" without swift and drastic changes.

Athens Olympics President Gianna Angelopoulos said that Greece -- the smallest nation to host an Olympics since Finland in 1952 -- had pulled off a "miracle" in getting ready after losing nearly two years through infighting.

IOC member Anita DeFrantz, a former U.S. Olympic rower who has been involved in the Games since competing in Montreal in 1976, said while inspecting venues that Greece would get it right on the night.

"They are exactly where they should be one year before the Games," she said.

But Greece's respected Kathimerini newspaper said in an editorial that blunders during test events last week, when rowers from Britain and the U.S. went under water because of strong winds and the German team withdrew with food poisoning, should "ring alarm bells and mobilise Athens 2004".

DAYLONG CELEBRATIONS

"... Athens 2004 must quickly tackle the organisational issues that threaten to torpedo next year's Games, resulting in the humiliation of this country," the editorial said.

While daylong celebrations are planned for the one-year mark later on Wednesday, the tick of the clock passed almost unnoticed.

The Athens journey goes back to September 5, 1997 when the Greek capital was awarded the Games after bitter failures to win them in 1996 -- the centenary of the modern revival of the Olympics -- and 2000 -- the first of the new millennium.

It has been a path strewn with controversies over stray dogs, prostitutes, archaeological treasures unearthed at venues, construction delays, post-September 11 security fears and power struggles.

But overriding all in the lead-up to next year's opening ceremony on August 13 has been the romance of the Games coming home to the land of both their ancient and modern birth.

The first Games were held in Olympia -- about a four-hour drive from Athens -- in 776 BC to honour the supreme god of Greek mythology, Zeus. The ancient Games ended around 393 AD when a Roman emperor banished them as pagan.

They were not revived until 1896 when they were held at the Panatheneum stadium in Athens, site of several events for 2004, including the end of the marathon.

Then, the Games had only 231 athletes, all male, and many of them tourists and bystanders.

In 2004, there will be 28 sporting events and more than 10,000 athletes from a record 201 nations, including Iraq and Afghanistan, who have been welcomed back to the fold.

When a full moon next appears over Athens in August it will be for the closing ceremony on August 29 when the Olympic Flame passes to Beijing for 2008.