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John Crean

What a pain you are, Billy Payne.

 The man who brought the Olympic Games to Atlanta, and then proceeded to win a gold medal in verbal gymnastics trying to paper over the glaring inadequacies and organisational foul-ups at the city venue, is now dishing out advice to 2000 hosts Sydney.

 Goodness knows who invited this albatross in wise-owl's clothing, but he flew in last week to squawk a little.

 'I like to compare it [staging the Olympics] to your daughter's piano recital,' he trilled.

 'She was not the best - there was someone better.

 'But at the same time, it was pretty good. I think the Atlanta Games accomplished what it set out to do.'  And what, pray, was that, Mr Payne? To infuriate competitors, spectators and the media with a shambolic transport system, to set back technology by a decade with a worthless information network, and to cheapen the Olympic name with tacky street-stall commercialism?  Everyone from International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch to your average Atlanta taxi driver (and they were pretty average) could tell that the Olympic grand piano was not only badly tuned but poorly played.

 While winging his way round Sydney, Payne remarked that the city should be prepared for criticism no matter how well the Games were organised.

 Those were the words of a man who is in constant denial.

 The summer Olympics in Seoul in 1988 and Barcelona four years later were well-organised and there was not much complaining going on either.

 Sydney will be judged on its merits and it has a head-start over Atlanta in terms of setting, sports facilities and sense, common and commercial.

 Before the Sydney 2000 Games roll around, the world awaits next year's Winter Olympics. And up Nagano way there is a man who is becoming as big a pain as Payne.

 Nagano Organising Committee director-general Makoto Kobayashi is at the centre of a snowball fight and has resorted to putting stones inside his.

 In short, the International Ski Federation (FIS) wants to put back the start of the men's downhill run by 120 metres. But this has been turned down by the organisers as it would encroach on a national park.

 However, every winter thousands of recreational skiers use the area without any hindrance from the authorities.

 Perhaps he has spent too much time on the piste, but Kobayashi's solution to this problem was to prohibit skiing in the national park to the Olympic competitors and fun skiers alike.

 That snowball with the stone hurt the FIS and their president Marc Hodler has threatened to pull skiing out of the Games completely if recreational skiing is banned.

 If Kobayashi is not to go down in Olympic lore as another Billy Payne, he will have to melt the iceberg blocking the way of a successful snow show.



Squawking albatross is painful reminder of Atlanta shambles