Swimmers train in the Olympic Aquatic Center

ATHENS, August 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – With the Athens Olympic Games only four days away, Greek officials promised that the prestigious event would be the most complete, best manned and most expensive security strategy in Olympic history.

“We are ready. Installations are ready. Our staff stands ready,” the head of the organizing committee, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, told Agence   France -Presse (AFP) Monday, August 9.

“Greeks are intent on making these Games successful and a big celebration.”

Greece has mobilized 70,000 security personnel for the Games, or about seven officers for each athlete.

Deputy Culture Minister Fanny Palli-Petralia said that security at the Games - the first summer Olympics since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States- would cost Greece $1.2 billion. (one billion euros).

Athens has spent five times more on security than the organizers of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

Hunters’ Help

The country’s hunters have also decided not to wait and see, offering their free-of-charge help with the massive security effort being made for the success of the Olympics.

Greece's public order minister, Yiorgos Voulgarakis, Monday formally accepted the offer from the country’s hunters.

They will monitor rural venues, where they know the terrain well, for intruders and forest fires, Voulgarakis said after meeting Nikos Papadodimas, head of the hunters' federation, four days before the start of the Games, Friday, August 13.

The hunters also agreed to put back the start of the hunting season, which usually begins on August 20 - bang in the middle of the Games - until after the close of the event on August 29.

“This cooperation we have with authorities is good. It creates a framework for a more permanent cooperation,” Papadodimas told AFP.

“In Greece, everybody hunts. It's not just a sport for the nobility, like in most of Europe,” he added.

The hunting federation's forest guard - an unarmed, private force which has the right to arrest people – also offered its services free of charge to the government to help with Olympic security.

Around 55 members of the forest guard will be on duty during the Games, not only at sports venues such as Marathon Lake, near the venue where rowing events will take place, and the mountain biking venue on Mount Parnitha, but also at Mornos dam and canal, which supply most of Athens' drinking water.

A record number of people have applied to be volunteers in Greece – a whopping 160,000 applications for just 45,000 places.

And of those chosen almost 5,000 have come from abroad, including 400 from Australia.

Ticket Rush

Greek soldier patrols around the Olympic complex in Athens (AFP)

Long lines of would-be spectators have been also waiting outside ticket booths in Athens to make a last-minute purchase for the first Olympic games in the 21^st century.

More than 54,000 tickets were sold Friday, August 7, a huge rise from the 4,500 that were sold daily in June.

The last-minute surge has helped dispel fears that the Games could take place in half-empty stadiums.

So far 2.2 million out of a total 5.3 million tickets had been sold by August 3, 10 days before the Games' opening ceremony.

Organizers have also begun a massive advertising campaign to boost ticket sales. It shows the Greek national football team's stunning success in this summer's European football championships and urges Greeks to go to the Games to experience “new moments of glory”.

More and more, Greece has already unveiled its “jewel” of an athletes' village late last month.

The 366-building complex on 400 acres of public land at the foot of Mount Parnitha will house more than 17,000 athletes and officials and will employ 10,000.

This will be the first time all athletes, including the US basketball team, will stay at the Olympic village since the 1992 Barcelona Games.

The Olympic flame returned to  Greece on July 9 after an international tour on all five continents, through 26 countries and 34 cities.

It will now continue its travels in Greece until it arrives at the Athens Olympics Stadium on the evening of August 13.

In 1896, the first Modern Olympic Games were held in Athens. Greece turned the Games into the greatest sports celebration on earth.

Approximately 300 athletes from 13 countries participated in the Games and all competed in nine different sports: Track and Field, (Marathon Race), Swimming, Cycling, Fencing, Gymnastics, Shooting, Lawn Tennis, Wrestling and Weightlifting.