Earlier this week the FBI and CIA were forced to tone down the intense security searches of competitors following complaints from many international teams that their athletes were being harassed. Athletes have everything searched repeatedly, and must often queue in sub-zero conditions for more than 30 minutes.
A Russian silver medallist was upset that she was asked to drink from her water bottle to prove it contained water as she was trying to get into the cross-country venue. "Every day we have to go through the same annoying procedures," said Larissa Lazutina. "It's a put-down for the athletes."
Matters took an even more bizarre turn yesterday when nine musicians from a California band had their bus stopped and searched 60 miles south of Salt Lake City after a convenience store clerk told officials they had asked about security checkpoints at the games."It was a surprise and it was funny," said a band member. "What wasn't so funny was that they asked us what ethnic groups were on the bus and after they searched the whole bus and found some articles about terrorism, they pulled one of our guys aside and questioned him a lot."
[b]Terrorist target[/b]
Fears of terror attacks have severely affected travel to Salt Lake City. Less than 7% of tickets have been sold to foreigners, and that figure includes the sales to overseas Olympic committees as well as families and friends of competitors. Of the 1.58m tickets available only 100,000 have been sold outside the country.
But that has not stopped these Olympics being an overwhelming success here, with 90% of tickets sold, making it the most successful games ever. Television ratings are also huge: an incredible 72m people, or one in four Americans, watched the opening ceremony on TV while the first day of competition gave NBC its biggest Saturday night audience for six years.
Inspired by competing at home, the American team is set to sow its biggest harvest of medals ever in the Winter games. But even that is not enough for USA Today, the country's biggest-selling newspaper, which is printing a table based on the total number of medals won rather than golds. Using that format, the US, with 10 medals won, are second behind Germany. But in the official list distributed by the IOC, Norway are top having won five gold medals compared with the Americans' three.
A strong anti-American feeling has existed among many IOC members since 1998 when 10 of its members were forced to resign or were expelled after they were found to have accepted a total of $1m in cash, gifts, scholarships and other inducements to win votes for Salt Lake's Olympic candidacy.
The IOC has tried to repair its battered image here by cutting back on many of the regal excesses which have marked its stay in previous host cities. But there is resentment among IOC members that the Salt Lake City leaders who offered the bribes, Tom Welch and David Johnson, have escaped unpunished after 15 felony charges, including bribery, were dropped.
Mr Welch and Mr Johnson are no longer involved with the Salt Lake organising committee but attended the opening ceremony.
See article at:[url]http://sport.guardian.co.uk/olympics/story/0,10308,650452,00.html[/url]
Eric The(AndTakeTheUnitedNationsWithYou,Too!)Hun[>]:)]