Workmen are scuttling to lay the last bricks and mortar but Athens Olympic officials are confident they can stage a memorable Games in 30 days.
Construction delays at many venues led the International Olympic Committee to read the riot act as fears that Athens would miss its deadline grew.
The last three months, however, have seen a marked improvement.
Although scaffolding is still to be seen throughout most of the city and a key railway line will not be operational until two weeks before D Day, both the government and Olympic officials are now confident everything will be ready in time.
However, embarrassed government officials were at pains to stress that the Games could not be disrupted by the type of massive power failure that threw the country in chaos on Monday, given the number of back-up generators.
The blackout, described as the worst in 10 years, left millions sweltering in sizzling temperatures and emergency services working overtime.
The failure, which cut off electricity supplies for five hours in some areas, was blamed on human error by embarrassed officials.
A surge in air conditioner use during a heatwave which has gripped Greece since last week was also suspected.
Greece’s astonishing triumph in the Euro 2004 soccer championships has even raised confidence that all the unsold tickets will be snapped up before opening night.
Violence in Iraq and the Middle East, sparking fears of a terrorist attack at the first Summer Games since September 11, has been blamed on the inability to sell almost two-thirds of the tickets.
Thousands of guards have begun taking up position as Greece’s €1-billion ($1,2-billion) plan for protecting Athens from an attack during the August Olympics takes shape.
Greece expects to deploy 70Â 000 personnel while Nato will provide surveillance planes, its Mediterranean fleet and a biochemical warfare unit to safeguard the Games.
But the fans who do buy tickets might miss some of the biggest names in sport because of a doping investigation in the United States.
Six US track stars are facing a probe into their connections with a discredited San Francisco laboratory accused of selling banned anabolic steroids.
They include Marion Jones, who won five medals in the 2000 Sydney Games, and Tim Montgomery, the 100m world record holder and father of her son.
However, they saved athletics officials from a headache when they failed to qualify at the US Olympic trials.
The sport’s governing body, the IAAF, had pulled back from grasping the nettle when they said they could not ban athletes who had not failed a drugs test.
However, Kelli White, who won the 100m and 200m in Jones’ absence at the 2003 world championships, was banned by the Americans, not usually the quickest to act, not because she tested positive for the designer steroid THG or the blood-booster EPO, but because the US Anti-Doping Agency had enough other evidence — doping schedules, emails detailing her drugs use — to convict her.
White is the highest-profile athlete to be banned but many believe she is only the tip of what may be a substantial iceberg.
And Australia, so quick to point the accusing finger in the past, has suspended the selection of its Olympic team amid widening allegations of doping by its own athletes.
World time trial cycling champion David Millar has withdrawn from the British team after French police put him under investigation while five-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong says he is no longer motivated enough to race in the Olympics.
Athens might be the cleanest Games for some time as anti-doping authorities are confident they have devised foolproof tests for two substances which have defied researchers for decades.
Tests for human growth hormone (HGH), which can help sprinters as well as endurance competitors, and haemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs), which aid stamina for long and middle-distance events are in the pipeline.
The IOC made a similar breakthrough on testing for erythropoietin (EPO) just before the 2000 Games in Sydney.
However, the number of cyclists who have successfully passed EPO tests only to be caught by the French police in their investigation raises questions about the tests.
And International Tennis Federation officials have shot themselves in the foot by fixing their deadline for Olympic entries before Wimbledon.
National Olympic Committees have until July 21 to name their Athens teams.
It means the hottest player on the women’s circuit — Maria Sharapova who destroyed Serena Williams in the All England final — will not be playing in Athens.
Fortunately, Roger Federer who has been so consistently good for the last year will be playing, although women’s world No 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium has yet to beat a mystery virus. — Sapa-AFP