Olympics: NZ team's inside advantage

By EUGENE BINGHAM

There's something about Tassos Varelas: his air of confidence, his charm, his dapper sports jacket with the comb tucked in the breast pocket.

Atop Lykavittos Hill, where a cable car lifts tourists above the dust and haze of Athens for the most magnificent view of the Greek capital, the man with a double life has the look of someone who is king of all he surveys. He also has the look of someone I should know.

Varelas is the attache for the New Zealand Olympic and Paralympic organisations, making sure things go smoothly when our teams arrive for the Olympic Games, but as he poses in front of the camera, I ponder whether I have met him somewhere else. His face seems vaguely familiar.

A small crowd of sightseers whispering behind us think so, too. One of them bravely asks, "Excuse me, is this photograph for a magazine? Where are you from?"

When he learns we're from New Zealand, he stares incredulously at the subject. "But that is Steven Spielberg, isn't it?"

Varelas has his hands in many things, but Hollywood film-making, is not one of them (though he does make documentaries). When I tell him about the mix-up, he laughs so much he has to dab the corners of his eyes.

Now I realise that's exactly who he looks like, with his swarthy face framed by a salt and pepper beard and glasses.

Varelas, a Greek man who fell in love with a New Zealander and New Zealand, is a mover and shaker in Athenian high society.

The former diplomat helps to prise open the doors of the powerful, an essential part of the job he is doing for New Zealand. "I help them see people they wouldn't otherwise see because here it is about contacts," says Varelas.

About 18 months ago, with the Games in Athens looming, New Zealand decided it needed someone who knew the city well to help facilitate and navigate its streets and society. It was a shrewd decision.

Greece is not the easiest place to do business, partly because of the language, partly because the rules of life are different. Athens is a city of four million and unless you know your way around and stride confidently, you won't get anywhere.

It's a bit like driving on the jam-packed roads. Zooming yellow taxis and motorbike riders with their helmets, bizarrely, under their arm will cram you out of your lane quick as a flash if you show the slightest sign of weakness.

Then, as a contradiction, the Greeks have an approach that can cause madness for those expecting uptight Anglo-Saxon super-efficiency. Meeting times slide, apparent commitments melt away, people who you think should know things adopt a dreamy, blank stare. It's a matter of taking a deep breath and letting the Mediterranean sunshine frizzle away the frustration.

Faced with this, the New Zealand Olympic Committee sought Varelas' services, just as Paralympic NZ had already done. It is a voluntary job, but one the 54-year-old "Gree-wi" (a name he uses to describe himself) jumped at.

"I believe I'm able to wear both my hats - I'll be able to help make sure the New Zealanders have the best possible impression of Greece, and then when they go home they'll be the best possible ambassadors for Greece."

Varelas had a middle-class upbringing steeped in Greek culture and remains intensely proud of its ancient history and role as the cradle of western civilisation. The family home is at Iraklio, home of Hercules.

In 1973, after completing a law degree at Athens University, the young Varelas headed to Britain to further his studies and learn English. There, in a Greek quarter of London's Soho, he met Angela White, a New Zealand girl from Canterbury on her OE. About a year later they left Britain for Christchurch, although they had no intention of staying put.

"I saw it as an opportunity to come to New Zealand and finish my studies [at Canterbury University]. I always intended returning to Europe." Love intervened. He and Angela married and started a family, a girl, Gina (now 23) and a boy, Constandino (20).

Varelas had also fallen in love with New Zealand. "I really enjoy New Zealand and love the people, their kindness and straightforwardness."

After university, he was snapped up by New Zealand's Department of Trade and Industry (later merged with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and settled in Wellington.

For 20 years, he was a civil servant of his adopted country but in 1997 he decided to return to Greece to pursue his passion. Varelas set up a non-governmental organisation, Cultural Horizons, working with the European Union to help to raise the standard of living in the countries that border Greece, and making historical documentaries.

It meant having to split his time between Wellington and Athens and his two families. When in Athens, he stays with his mother near the Olympic Stadium. In Wellington, he returns to the home in Hataitai he and Angela have lived in almost all their married life.

"It's a frenetic kind of existence because my mind and my heart is back in New Zealand with my family. This was one of the toughest things I had to do."

His Olympic commitments have meant he has had to spend more time in Athens than he would like. "Weather-wise, no, I don't miss Wellington, but otherwise I love it. When I go back home I really relax because life here is very hectic," he says, manoeuvring through the traffic on a hot Athens day.

I agree. Life there is hectic. Right now, it's even busier than normal. The city has become a construction zone.

Athens, always dusty, is even more so. New roads and motorways _ loved by taxi drivers who zig-zag between the lanes at 150km/h _ snake across the city. Office blocks and shopfronts have undergone a city council-subsidised spruce up.

Even the majestic Parthenon is obscured by scaffolding and cranes. And then there are the sporting venues, stadiums and halls the Athenian workforce is scrambling to complete before the opening ceremony next month.

Athens has copped a lot of criticism over the construction delays. Locals shrug it off, saying that running late is the Greek way. Talk to them long enough, though, and it becomes obvious they are hurt.

Intense patriotism is an important part of their national psyche, fuelled in part by years of occupation. They are also mediaphiles, absorbing information from an amazing array of newspapers and television news programmes.

To have read and heard what the world has been saying about their Olympic preparations has irked and stung. It doesn't even help to assure them that once the Games start, talk of delays will be forgotten.

I am certain Athens will be sharp and ready. Wherever the Olympics take place, a parallel universe descends on the host city. It becomes Olympicsville. Away from the Olympics, Athens will still be rough-around-the-edge-but-charming old Athens. But in Olympicsville, efficiency will rule. There will be no question of the incomplete venues.

Varelas is sure of it too, and he can't wait to show off Athens. On our last night, he took us away from the tourist districts to a buzzing suburban restaurant zone where we feasted on genuine Greek cuisine including barbecued octopus, deep-fried sardines, and delicious vegetable dishes of kolokithokeftedes (courgette balls) and horta (dandelion and courgette salad drizzled in olive oil).

Over dinner, Varelas marvelled at the opportunity his role with our Olympic teams has given him. "I'm in the town of my birth working with the team of my adopted country - it's a great honour."

He dreams of the opening ceremony, when he will take his place as a member of the team: the Greek with the Kiwi heart marching into the Athens Olympic Stadium looking dapper, as usual, in the black uniform of New Zealand.