Huge Greek suspension bridge to open on eve of Olympics

ATHENS (AFP) - Greece's showcase Rion-Antirion suspension bridge, will open on August 12, one day before the start of the Athens Olympics, a government official said.

The structure will be "officially inaugurated and opened to traffic" on that date, minister of public works Georges Souflias told a news conference.

Four days earlier, members of Greece's football team which won the Euro 2004 tournament last month are to cross the bridge on foot with the Olympic flame.

The bridge, one of the world's longest of its kind, bestrides the 2.2-kilometre (1.36 miles) wide, earthquake-prone sea straits between Antirio, in western mainland Greece, and Rion, a suburb of Patras in the Peloponnese island of southern Greece.

It was to to have been completed in November, but authorities pressed for constructors to have it ready before the Olympics in order to present it as a symbol of a modern Greece before the international media.