ATHENS, February 22. FINA — swimming's international governing body — disassociated itself last Friday from what it characterized as "wrong and unauthorized comments" by Elena Vaytsekhovskaya, a FINA press official. Vaytsekhovskaya had said that Greek Olympic organizers should scrap plans to build a roof for the aquatic center.<\/p>\n
Broadcasters had warned that a planned roof did not cast enough shadow to guarantee top-quality television pictures from the pool, one of the most popular Olympic sports.<\/p>\n
FINA President Mustapha Larfaoui, who was in Athens for an inspection of Olympic facilities, said the federation believed the roof was essential for the conduct of events.<\/p>\n
"We need the roof for everyone involved and are very optimistic it will be ready on time," Larfaoui told reoporters, it what clearly was damage-control mode. "We are very happy with the facilities we have seen on our tour."<\/p>\n
Earlier, Vaytsekhovskaya said the roof was the least of organizers' problems.<\/p>\n
In a scathing commentary, Vaytsekhovskaya noted: "If they manage to get water in the pool then we'll be happy." <\/p>\n
But Larfaoui said: "This official has no right to speak on FINA matters and indeed she says her comments were not made."<\/p>\n
Games organizers are rushing to complete several sports venues less than six months before the Olympics in August.<\/p>\n
Greek Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos, the government's top Olympics official, told reporters this week there was a problem with the planned roof. "An alternative solution which will be completed by June," he said.<\/p>\n
Venizelos rejected suggestions that the government should have detected the problem earlier.<\/p>\n
"I must remind you that we are under no obligation to cover the swimming center. It is just that we want to be better than our contractual obligations," he told reporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS, February 22. FINA — swimming's international governing body — disassociated itself last Friday from what it characterized as "wrong and unauthorized comments" by Elena Vaytsekhovskaya, a FINA press official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n