There’s little wonder that a number of Olympic-level athletes and their families have expressed concern about taking part in the summer games Aug. 13-19 in Athens, Greece.

The experience of the mayor of the city alone tends to create worry for those hoping to compete in one of the most troubled and turbulent sectors of the world.

Dora Bakoyannis is the optimistic and enthusiastic mayor of Athens. She has worked 12- to 14-hour days for a long time now trying to get the area’s infrastructure ready for the games and to help organize the kinds of massive security everyone realizes is necessary. As one media observer noted, the mayor has taken on the challenge of a lifetime: “Athenians are racing to modernize a crowded old city and upgrade the transportation system while showcasing Athens’ distinctive character — all the while mindful of the security challenge posed.”

Mayor Bakoyannis has no trouble identifying with the issue of safety and security and how difficult it can be to handle. She is one of four children of Constantine Mitstakis, Greek prime minister from 1990 to 1993. When the mayor was a child, her father, then a member of Parliament, was jailed after a military coup. He and the family fled the country when Dora was 14.

When military rule collapsed in 1974, the family returned to Greece. Dora married Pavlos Bakoyannis, a vocal opposition journalist and intellectual who also had returned from exile. He became a member of Parliament but was slain in 1989 by members of a terrorist group, members of which testified in court last year they had singled him out because his writings had helped unify Greek political parties.

Dora chose to run for her murdered husband’s seat in parliament, won and was re-elected three times. In 1998, she remarried, to a Greek shipping magnate.

But after her landslide mayoral victory in 2002, a deranged man shot at her as she was getting into a car at the foot of the Acropolis. She was saved because she stooped to pick up a handbag she had flung into a car while calling her husband on her cell phone.

The gallant, courageous mayor of Athens knows firsthand what tragedies can lurk in her city and its environs. Yet she continues to labor on behalf of her nation and the prestigious Olympic festival. But in view of her harrowing experiences and the fact that the summer games could be a focal point of terrorists with a “message,” it is not surprising that many competitors, media people and tourists have grave reservations about what might happen.

All of this, of course, is in horrible contrast to the concept of peace, brotherhood and understanding for which the Olympics were founded in 776 B.C., in Greece.