Work on the Olympic Games site in Rome proceeds space after long spells obtain and mud. The building programme is a vast one encompassing roads, a new inter-continental airport, bridges and other public works. Opening date Aug. 26. Duration 18 days.

Olympic Village will house nearly 7000 athletes - 1000 of them girls - in modern two and three-story buildings raised above the ground on columns of reinforced concrete. After the Games the accommodation will be turned into low-rent flats for civil servants.

The Village is near the Foro Italico, focal point of the Games, with seats for 100,000. This is the Olympic Stadium where all track and field finals will be held. Around it a most - onetime barrier between soccer referees and angry fans. Nearby is the Marble Stadium - Mussolini's price showpiece built 1939 - where, between field hockey tourneys, athletes will warm up before contests in the Stadium. A tunnel connects the two - the athletes' thoroughfare after warming up.

The Swimming Stadium with seats for 20,000 is for the major events including water polo. Nearing completion, it is connected also by tunnel to a covered pool for practice training. Portholes on the surface of the water in the Stadium pool will enable judges, timekeepers and cameraman to follow the contests.

The Congress Palace for fencing and a sports palace for boxing stand on the site of Mussolini's Universal Exhibition - cancelled by the intervention of World War Two. In the same Exhibition area is a velodrome with a wooden track of 400 metres and 20,000 seat. The Palace of Sports nearing completion for boxing and basket ball with seats for 20,000 has a dome 100 metres across and beneath it a bowl-shaped area sunk into the ground for the events. The Castel Gandolfo Lake will feature rowing contests and at the parkland district of Villa Borghese equestrian events.

In all, the Olympic stadiums number 13 with a combined seating capacity for nearly 300,000.