BEIJING, Feb. 10 -- Friday's opening ceremony of the 20th Turin Winter Olympics is expected to be followed by 35,000 spectators inside the Stadio Olimpico and approximately 2 billion television viewers worldwide.

    International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge is confident that the transportation problems are just last-minute glitches in the race for the first winter Olympics in Italy since Cortina D'Ampezzo in 1956.

    Turin itself and the surrounding mountain venues are ready for the action, which gets under way for real Saturday, the day after the opening ceremony.

    Rogge warned that any athlete caught taking drugs would face the Italian legal system and risked being jailed.

    "If an athlete tests positive, the Italian court will intervene. There is no exception. Everybody, no matter from which country, will be submitted to the Italian law," he said.

    A massive security operation will be in place with some 15,000 police and military personnel deployed and the use of AWACS surveillance planes.

    Italy will close the airspace over Turin and NATO will patrol the skies Friday when athletes and foreign dignitaries including Laura Bush, the U.S. first lady, attend the opening ceremony.

    The no-fly order was the latest move to protect the thousands of athletes and at least 15 visiting foreign leaders gathering in Turin.

    Official tips short track as China's best hope

    XIAO TIAN, deputy head of the Chinese delegation, said Wednesday evening that short track speed skating would claim a gold medal for China.

    Gold medal hopes have been pinned on the short track speed skating team, spearheaded by Yang Yang (A), who was awarded the first-ever Winter Olympic gold medal for China from the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

    In 2002, Yang Yang (A) won both women's 500-meter and 1,000-meter at the 19th Winter Olympics.

    Besides, Wang Meng, a 20-year-old, is also a medal hopeful after she claimed a 3,000-meter relay title in the 2003 World Championships and became the 500-meter gold medalist in the 2004 World Championships.

    Xiao also predicted that freestyle aerials, speed skating and figure skating would also possibly win gold medals.

    Chinese skaters will take part in all eight short track events, namely both men's and women's 500-meter, 1,000-meter, 1,500-meter, men's 5,000- meter and women's 3,000-meter relays, slated from Feb. 12 to 25.

    For the Turin Olympics slated from Feb. 10-26, China has dispatched 151 members, including 76 athletes who will vie for the honors in 47 events.

    Four years after winning their Olympic bronze medals, figure skating pair Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo are making their last bid for the gold in Turin despite Zhao's injury.

    The winners of the 2002 and 2003 world titles have not competed since the 32-year-old Zhao snapped his Achilles tendon last August, ending a difficult year that saw the pair pull out of the World Championships in Moscow at the last minute due to Zhao's foot injury.

    Zhao's injury forced the pair to lower their technical level, changing a triple toe jump plus triple toe jump to a triple toe jump plus double axel.

    Two other Chinese pairs in Pang Qing and Tong Jian, and Zhang Hao and Zhang Dan, also set to challenge the Russian dominance.

    The Winter Olympics' pairs skating arena has long been dominated by the Russians, who have been winning the pairs golds at every Games from Innsbruck in 1964 to the Salt Lake City in 2002.

    The only nation to intrude on their monopoly was Canada, whose pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier finished second in Salt Lake City but were awarded duplicate gold medals after a judging scandal.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)