Organisers of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games have given the two fingers to International Olympic committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch. The Olympic head wanted to advance the date of the Greek summer games to accommodate professional soccer in order to allow some of the world's top players to appear for national teams in the Olympics by avoiding clashes with domestic and European league programmes.

But the 2004 committee decided at a board meeting this week not to agree to Samaranch's request to hold the Games in July instead of the scheduled August 13th-29th dates. The committee believe it would be too difficult to secure hotel space in July and to increase seat capacity in Greece's soccer stadiums. Traffic in Athens is also far worse in July than August. It appears that the Greeks might actually be staging the Games for the public rather than the IOC blazers. Times are changing.