Waiting at base camp for the hard climb ahead

IN the mammoth village under Parnitha Mountain, 'yesterday' is another word for antiquity.There is an easel erected at the main dining hall entrance, bearing a poster for the upcoming IOC Athletes' Commission election. Thirty-two faces smile from that poster but, yesterday, one was obscured by a yellow Post-It, with the word 'withdrawn' scribbled across it. If you lifted the paper, underneath you caught the smile of Costas Kenteris. Ancient story. Up at the top of the great, pastel sprawl, the banal jobs of campus life were getting done. Adrian O'Dwyer helped carry the bags of Maria McCambridge, just arrived from the airport. Olive Loughnane strolled in from training; Andy Lee headed for the village gym. A few tricolors fluttered from apartment balconies. The Irish have taken two air-conditioned blocks here, smart, pale green, three-storied houses that, at Games-end, will pass on to working-class Athenian families. Inside, the apartments are surgical white, with grey marble floors. Little hints at the identity of the occupants, save a poster in each common room, bearing the motto 'In harmony between ourselves for our country'. In a basement at the rear, two giant cartons sit, packed with postcards awaiting Sonia O'Sullivan's perusal. It's estimated that there are upwards of six thousand cards, all carrying messages of encouragement. "Sonia, run like you've stolen something", reads one at the top of a pile. The basement is the temporary home of the Olympic Council of Ireland, a kind of mission-room for the team. It extends into a big white area, housing a row of tables for physiotherapy and massage. Directly opposite the Irish blocks is a services building that, next month, becomes a local school. Here, some athletes surf the internet, some play snooker, some collect their laundry. Next door is another dining marquee. Ah, food. The great, unheralded sport of Olympus. Brings more people together than prayer. Every evening in the main dining hall, medal-winners stroll in, olive wreaths on their heads, and the place just convulses with applause. Feels like everyone's the same colour there. The same country. Yesterday, O'Dwyer queued for breakfast beside a four foot two gymnast and a seven foot three basketball player. This place enchants the Irish high-jumper. He sees the diversity, the friendship and it's as if everything he's done in his life was propelling him to the Athenian suburb of Acharnai. "You feel such energy," he said yesterday. "I'm just looking at things up in the air and thinking 'I want to jump over that now'. I can't pass a window without doing my high-jump technique. It's a calm environment and it's cool." Just one problem. The Olympic Village is bound up in tighter security than Guantanamo Bay. And, when you're a big extrovert kid with a taste for Gothic jewellery, people go all edgy every time you approach a metal-detector. O'Dwyer's been triggering more sirens than a White House intruder. "Oh man, it's difficult," he smiled. "I keep getting stuck in security. I've my lucky big knife that I bring everywhere and I can't bring it into this place. Then I have to take off all the jewellery to go through the metal detectors. It's a big hassle. But I don't mind it so much. It's me. It's what I do. "I still have my case full of jewellery upstairs. I'll be keeping it on. I'm not going to change." The bulk of the Irish Olympic team is now based here. Pampered and secure. They have access to every imaginable need of a modern-day athlete. Today, Nick Sweeney arrives and will be directed straight to the campus polyclinic for an MRI scan on his injured knee. A small army is on call full-time with the Irish team. There are doctors, physiologists, physiotherapists and a sports psychologist. Everything radiates serenity. In Sydney, late-night noise niggled some of the athletes enough to spoil their preparation. One Jamaican celebration, especially, has gone down in Olympic infamy. So, two years ago, the OCI surveyed a map of the Athens village and chose their preferred location. Consensus is that they chose it well. On Monday last, rowers Sam Lynch and Gearoid Towey checked in, happy to leave the solitude of their base near the rowing lake for a few days at least. The fours settled here from day one. Only the sailors and canoeists stayed away en bloc and may not understand what they're missing. There's a sense of community and security that, if anything, has been amplified by news of Jamie Costin's terrible accident. Costin travels home in an air ambulance today. His team-mates are incredulous. Monday seemed a day of such endless turmoil for the Irish beyond the perimeter fencing of the village, most are happy to be inside. "I've heard stories about the car," said O'Dwyer yesterday. "It's like a scene out of Final Destination apparently. Absolutely horrible to think about it. I feel so sorry for Jamie. Nasty. Not good. It's not a good omen. But we're going to change that. We all have our own things in sight now and we can't let anything interfere." There is no other way in the athletes' kingdom. You can't call it selfishness, because it isn't. It's survival. You hear bad things and move on. You tidy your own place. The story of Kenteris and Thanou? Not exactly a surging tsunami here. Five hours after their eviction, no Irish athlete seemed to know. "Haven't heard anything about them," said O'Dwyer. "They're out of the Games? "Well, there you go. Doesn't surprise me. Suppose it's good that we're getting those guys out of here. But it's not going to change anything in this camp to tell you the truth. Actually, you're the first person that's even mentioned them. "Hey, get them out of here. It's fine. No worries. I'm not going to get upset about it anyway." Bigger hills to climb. - Vincent HoganIn Athens

Material girls are so last century

MADONNA boasted of being "a material girl in a material world". But, as she prepares to play her first Irish concert, a new survey claims the message behind her most famous incarnation is no longer relevant to modern women. At the height of Madonna's fame the size of a man's wallet was as at least as important to the average girl as the size of his heart. But a survey of 991 Irish women, taken by the UK-based Friends Reunited dating service, shows women are no longer impressed by men's financial prowess. Although 81 per cent of men and 79 per cent of women agreed with the statement 'Women today like to be wined and dined by their date/partner', just 13 percent of women said 'financial security' was a priority in looking for a mate. The majority listed intelligence as the primary attribute they sought in a partner while less than one percent said 'designer clothes' were a turn on. When asked what gift they would prefer to receive after a successful date an overwhelming 56 per cent of women said 'flowers' while just eight per cent yearned for 'expensive jewellery'. Friends Reunited dating spokeswoman Rhoda Moore said: "We were inspired to carry out this survey by Madonna's Reinvention tour and we found that women have indeed reinvented themselves. "We are no longer living in a material world. Women are quite capable of earning their own money and so they are less impressed by material things. They still want to be wooed by a man and treated like a lady, but this no longer means the vulgar displays of wealth that we saw in the Eighties. "Now it is all about showing a woman that you care and are a genuine person. Where once women wanted diamonds, now they want flowers." LARA BRADLEY