Newsweek
Athens 2004: Trained for the Games
By Trent Gegax
- © 2004 Newsweek, Inc
May 3 issue - As reporting assignments go, the Olympics is up there with a posting to Paris. There's exotic food, historic sites and an international cast of characters. These days, that happens to include Al Qaeda. That's why sports reporters headed to the Athens Games are training as if they're marching off to war. "Concerns about Greece and other countries in the area gave us some concern," said New York Times sports editor Tom Jolly. Spearheaded by the Times, some 40 reporters from the New York Daily News, Newsday and others (NEWSWEEK included) will take cues from Centurion Risk Assessment Services, an English firm that usually preps war correspondents. Among topics to be covered: techniques for avoiding and reacting to car bombs, blast injuries, chem-bio attacks and mass panic in the streets. "God forbid it will ever have to be put into practice," said Centurion's Paul Rees, a former Royal Marines commando.
Sportswriters, typically the most curmudgeonly house in the Fourth Estate, range from concerned to blasé. Steve Politi, a sports features writer for Newark's Star-Ledger, called the Madrid train bombings a wake-up call. "Now we're hearing about bombs in [soda] bottles," said Politi, whose wife worries about his assignment, "and I think a course like this isn't a bad idea." Star-Ledger sports editor Chris D'Amico said his writers are eager for the course: "It'll scare them and ease their minds at the same time." Others are more sanguine. Filip Bondy of the Daily News says, "I really think there are more dangerous assignments than being embedded with the gymnasts."
