Warming Up for the 1980 Olympics

At Spartakiad, one can see the future, and it works--mostly

Exactly 363 days before the 1980 Moscow Olympics were due to begin, an Olympic dress rehearsal opened with a mighty spectacle. The event is Spartakiad,the quadrennial two-week games of the U.S.S.R., and its opening ceremony was the kind of show that the Soviet Union does so well, choreographed to a split second bursting with color and life. Before 103,000 people in Lenin Stadium, folk dancers, marching teams, gymnasts and 6,000 card flashers performed with astonishing precision. Ritual welcomes were delivered, the Olympic torch was lighted, and 3,000 doves soared skyward. All in precisely two hours.

When the competition began later that afternoon, another typically Soviet spectacle took place. In a heat of the 400-meter hurdles, the giant electronic scoreboard in Lenin Stadium flashed word that Edwin Moses of the U.S., the world's best in the event, would be wearing No. 825 and running in Lane 2. Trouble was Moses was at a track meet in Italy. The real No. 825, who belly-flopped at the last hurdle ,was Stan Vinson, an American middle-distance runner competing in the hurdles for the first time.

The pageant and the ensuing mix-up seemed a fitting preview of the 22nd Olympiad, displaying, as one visiting U S sportswnter unkindly put it, "the Russian proclivity for excelling at pomp and fouling up circumstance." Spartakiad's first week did produce scores of minor organizational glitches that need to be ironed before next year. But to their credit the Soviets seemed obsessively determined to correct their mistakes and make the most impressive Olympiad yet. Spartakiad features 10,000 Soviet athletes, sifted from nearly 100 million entrants over two years of eliminations and--for the first time--2,500 foreign competitors. The games were organized so that the Soviets have a better chance of gaming the finals, and of the 87 other nations, not all entered their top competitors. The U.S., for instance, sent only 109 athletes, of whom only eight are top-ranked in their event. Still, the U.S. broke into the winner's circle when Karen Hawkins, 22, of St. Louis took a silver in the 200-meter dash. Then the U.S. collected four gold medals in Spartakiad's first five days: Wardell Gilbreath, 25, of Amarillo, Texas, in the 200-meter dash; John Powell, 32, of Cupertino, Calif., in the discus; Henry Marsh, 25, of Eugene, Ore., in the 3,000-meter steeplechase; and Vinson, 27, of Chicago, in the 400 meter.

Otherwise, Spartakiad was Olympiad without the crowds. The scale of the competition equals that of the Olympics, though several important 1980 facilities are not yet in operation. The official Olympic symbol, a cute bear cub named Misha, made its debut. With only a handful of Western tourists in Moscow last week, the city's life-support systems were not severely tested. But Soviet patience was, largely by Western journalists complaining about stalled visas, confusing event schedules and scoreboards that used the Cyrillic alphabet. Fed up, a Soviet official denied that Spartakiad was a "dress rehearsal" for the Olympics, just as another official was proclaiming it such.

The testiness is understandable. Not since Napoleon's unwelcome visit in 1812 has Moscow faced the prospect of so many Westerners all at once: 300,000 in three weeks next year, or more than half the number the city normally sees in an entire year. These tourists will have unprecedented freedom, if very little time, to move about on their own--and, interestingly, to use cameras and tape recorders in the cities they visit.

The Soviets are approaching the Olympic challenge much as the ancient pharaohs went about building pyramids, with single-minded intensity and a cast of thousands. A total of 99 construction projects, either new buildings or major re-buildings, have been undertaken in connection with the games. Of these, 76 are in Moscow, where the competition is centered. The rest are spread among the four other Olympic cities--Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk and Tallinn.

Construction began in the spring of 1977 and has proceeded almost on schedule, despite an unusually cold winter and the usual bureaucratic and planning snags. Specialists have been recruited from all over the Soviet Union, thousands of Young Communist League volunteers have taken up shovels to help out, and materials and manpower have been diverted from non-Olympic projects. Construction battalions from the Soviet army are working at many sites.

Unofficial estimates put construction costs at about $375 million, or less than half the totals for both Munich and Montreal. While refusing to give an official cost estimate, the Soviet government does say that income from sports lotteries, tour ism, commemorative stamp sales, souvenirs and television rights should more than cover building costs. The Soviets also point out that all the new Olympic facil ities will be put to good use after the games. The Olympic Village (see box), for example, will become a housing project for 12,000 lucky citizens. Indeed, the 1980 Olympics will be not just a sporting event, but a festival of architecture and technology. Some of the highlights:

> Lenin Stadium, now 23 years old, has been thoroughly refurbished. On the newly installed track, times were slow last week, but that could have been partly because of the paucity of world-class sprinters. As at most Olympic venues, the seating is bleacher-style and tough on the back and posterior. Rest rooms are a testament to the Soviet bladder: one ladies' room, for example, serves for nearly 10,000 spectators with just three toilets.

> The indoor stadium in the Olimpiisky Sports Center will be the largest covered arena in Europe. Standing 16 stories high and seating 45,000, it can accommodate a single event, or be divided by a soundproof wall so that two contests--a basketball game and a volleyball match, for example--can go on at once.

> The swimming arena, located next to the indoor arena, will have separate pools for swimming and diving under a graceful, dished roof and will seat 10,000.

> The rowing canal in the Moscow suburb of Krylatskoe is the best in Europe, even though the stands, seating 10,000, were erected on the wrong side for the prevailing winds, sheltering the inner two lanes and making them calmer and faster than the outer two.

> The Velodrome Krylatskoe, whose striking design was produced by a nationwide architectural competition, will station 6,000 spectators around its swooping, ranked cycling track.

> Druzhba (Friendship) Hall is an elegant gym set on diamond-shaped exterior struts that make it look like a crab. It will house the volleyball championships and seat 3,000.

Also nearing completion are two centers for the horde of sports journalists who will descend in 1980. Print reporters will have their headquarters at a spacious, up-to-date facility on Zubovsky Boulevard in central Moscow, which will be equipped to handle 3,000 writers at once. Some 3,800 foreign television and radio personnel will work out of a modern complex in north Moscow.

NBC, which paid $85 million for TV rights to the Olympics and will broadcast 150 hours' worth, flew in 45 production officials to scout Spartakiad. Next year the network will bring 660 staffers to supplement the pool coverage being provided by the host country.

Before returning to the U.S., NBC President Robert Mulholland raved about Soviet gains in television techniques: "We now see slow motion and instant replay--common for us but relatively new for them--used with regularity and with in credible skill." Will NBC'S coverage be censored in any way? Said Mulholland: "We've told them that we'll cover anything that happens, and they've understood that from Day One. But it's their house and they own the electricity." Meaning, apparently, that the Soviets can pull the plug if they dislike what they see.

Mindful that satisfied tourists are also potential propaganda bees, spreading the good word about the U.S.S.R. across the West, the Soviets are going to prodigious lengths to please those foreigners who simply come to watch the games. All told, 100,000 Soviets will work directly on the Olympics, and another 100,000 will serve foreign visitors. More than 10,000 are being trained as interpreters, and thousands of others, from cab drivers to tourist guides, are studying the rudiments of foreign languages. To ensure a positive first impression, the Soviets even hired a West German consortium to build a new terminal at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, which is now noisy, cramped and plagued by long customs waits.

It is on hotels and restaurants, where tourists will spend more time than in the bleachers, that Soviet planners seem wisely to be concentrating their attentions. By next summer, the capacity of first-class hotels in Moscow will have been increased from 50,000 to 75,000. The most important new facility will be the 10,000-bed Izmailovo Park complex, a cluster of five 28-story hotels, each with restaurants, underground parking and a movie theater. Only one new hotel has opened so far, the glittering, semicircular, 28-story Kosmos on Prospekt Mira. Built by a group of French companies who imported everything to make it but steel and cement, the Kosmos is the only luxury-class hotel in the capital. Comfort-minded tourists need not apply, however: its 3,000 beds will be filled during the Olympics by radio and television crews.

Although visitors will eat most meals in their hotels, 150 restaurants, cafes and snack bars are being built near the Olympic sites and on main thoroughfares. The new eateries will serve European food, Soviet regional specialties and such national favorites as blini (pan cakes), borscht (beet soup with sour cream) and pelmeni (stuffed dumplings).

At the events, spectators will be able to choose from smoked salmon, caviar and sliced sausages. Drinks include hot tea, vodka, or Coca-Cola and its orange-flavored cousin, Fanta, dispensed by strolling vendors through a tube from a backpack tank. (Pepsi-Cola has been available in the U.S.S.R. for six years, but Coke won the Olympic bidding.) Not to be outdone in the soda race, the Soviets have invented their own Olympic drink, Druzhba, a cranberry-apple concoction.

But despite the best efforts of the Druzhba generation, it was plain last week that there will be problems in 1980. For ordinary tourists, the chief difficulties will be lack of time and flexibility. Most Americans will be on multicity package tours that include only five days in Moscow, usually not enough to follow an event from trials to finals. Tickets for sporting events, as well as for cultural activities be on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, though "barter booths" will be set up in hotel lobbies to allow spectators to swap unwanted tickets. There will be some agonizing choices. Faced with a 7 p.m curtain at the Bolshoi and an Olympic event it the same time--most finals are scheduled for the evening--some tourists will doubtless go home unsatisfied.

Despite the drawbacks, 12,000 of the 17,000 tour places allotted to Americans have already been spoken for. (All travel and ticket arrangements are being handled by the Russian Travel Bureau, an American-owned firm in New York.) The tour prices--$1,550 for 15 days, $1,850 for 22 days--include most meals, sightseeing entertainment and "first class" accommodations, which are far less opulent than their typical Western equivalents. Tickets to Olympic events, which cost anywhere from $3 to $38, are extra.

After covering the first week of Spartakiad in Moscow, TIME Sports Editor B.J. Phillips offered some survival tips for Olympic travelers:

"The sports facilities are impressive the amenities anything but. Toilets are few, far between and largely unsanitary. Every mother's advice has never been more apropos: 'Go to the bathroom before you leave.' Bring a seat cushion--most of the stands are bleacher-style seating--and a pair of powerful binoculars to use in the immense stadiums. If possible, take taxis, buses and subways. Don't drive yourself: street signs are almost all in Russian and left turns are illegal in Moscow. Above all, be patient."

While Westerners fretted about language difficulties and transportation, Soviet officialdom worried aloud about sinister influences. The chief of the Moscow City Communist Party, Politburo Member Viktor Grishin, said Muscovites should be cordial to visitors, but he exhorted them to "stress the advantages of the Soviet way of life ... and repulse the propaganda of alien ideas and principles "

Comrade Grishin should pay special heed to the likes of Alfred Mayes, 18, an affable light-middleweight boxer from St Louis. Mayes likes to have his outsize portable tape player blaring disco music when he skips rope, and he did not alter that regimen for last week's Spartakiad What is worse, Mayes has made a few converts. He has taught the cleaning women his practice gym to lay down their brooms and pick up the beat. Wearing toothless smiles and saying "disco disco," they twitch to the music in a most un-Soviet manner.

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