Olympic champion Michael Johnson does not believe Athens can stage a "great" Games and says the 2004 Olympics will suffer in comparison to Sydney in 2000.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, one year before the Athens Games start, the five-times athletics gold medallist also offered his support to introducing prize money at future Olympics.
Athens organisers believe they are on target to get Games facilities finished on time after a slow start that greatly concerned the International Olympic Committee.
"I believe that they will be ready to stage the Games, but I don't feel they will be ready or able to stage a great Olympic Games," said Johnson, who competed in Athens at the 1997 world championships and retired in 2001.
"It is unfortunate that the city of Athens will stage the next Games after Sydney. The Sydney Olympics were the best Olympics from a spectators' point of view in which I have been involved."
Johnson said Sydney is a cosmopolitan city that had fully embraced the Games.
"Athens, by contrast, though a great city with much history in a beautiful country, is crowded and old and not properly equipped for the numbers of visitors it will attract next year for the Games."
Comparing the Sydney and Athens Games "there is no way that Athens can win that contest," he said.
Johnson added that the trend for the Games to become bigger and more commercial was too powerful to stop and said he would not be surprised if prize money was introduced eventually.
"I believe the IOC will continue to do what they need to for the Games' success to be continued and their status as the greatest sporting spectacle the world has seen maintained.
"And if that means offering some sort of prize money to the athletes who participate, then that is what they will do. And I wouldn't disagree."
