By Ben Rand
Gannett News Service

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - If you think Michael Phelps, Marion Jones, Yao Ming and other world-class athletes will be under extreme pressure during the upcoming Summer Olympics in Athens, consider what managers at Eastman Kodak Co. and Xerox Corp. will be facing.

The two companies will be responsible for printing millions of documents and processing millions of images in connection with their top-level sponsorships of the Summer Games, which open Friday.

To produce those pictures and pages, Kodak and Xerox will be managing sprawling imaging networks that connect thousands of pieces of equipment - printers, photo processors, personal computers and the like - deployed to more than 100 venues across Greece.

The numbers could be staggering by the time the athletes go home:

• Kodak is responsible for processing and digitizing what could be an estimated 3 million images captured by photojournalists at the games, as well as for producing 350,000 security badges and 80,000 visa credentials. Its equipment will also be used to X-ray injured athletes.

• Xerox, meanwhile, will be busy creating the printed record of athletic competition. The company is charged with printing and distributing results of competitions in all 28 sports in a variety of formats. The company expects to produce 120 million pages of race results - 5,000 each second.

Perhaps more important than the numbers, the Games give both companies a chance to show the world they are making progress in adapting to the all-digital economy.

Kodak will be processing digital and film pictures captured by photojournalists, a number expected to top 3 million, or 176,500 a day. All images will be converted to digital format.

Kodak's processing lab will include 60 computer workstations to allow photojournalists to send their images back to editors, said Greg Walker, director of presence and alliance marketing, which is overseeing Kodak's Olympic effort.