Utah spares no expense for golden opportunity

The mountains are being patrolled on skis, snowmobiles and even snowshoes. Sharpshooters are hidden thousands of feet up the slopes with night-vision goggles and thermal imaging equipment.

Even so, there is a nervousness among the competitors. The Japanese are among several teams to have arrived with supplies of anthrax antibiotics. The Australians say that they are not opening any post in the Olympic Village.

But the authorities are confident. Utah Governor Mike Leavitt said: 'Terrorists depend on surprise and complacency, and they won't find them here.'

Adorning the outside of high-rise buildings in the downtown streets of this city are enormous photographs of Olympic competitors in action, as if to remind local residents of the reason that 2,654 athletes, as many officials and 10,000 media folk are gathered here.

They might need that reminder. Since the International Olympic Committee invited them seven years ago to host these Games, the city known for mountains, Mormons and multiple marriage has been more closely associated with another M-word: money.

At least $10million was said to have greased the palms of International Olympic Committee members to make them choose Salt Lake City as hosts. Cash, scholarships, hospital treatment and even ornate doorknobs were said to have been employed.

Six IOC members were expelled, others resigned and two senior executives of the organising committee, Tom Welch and Dave Johnson, were forced out of office, charged between them with 15 counts of fraud, conspiracy, racketeering and corruption. The charges were thrown out by a local judge last month, a decision federal authorities say they will challenge.

But nobody here doubts that the $10m was the best investment the city ever made. The greatest profit will come from tourism after the Games put Utah on the winter sport map, but already there has been a handsome first dividend.

The federal government has poured taxpayers' money into an already-rich state, 20 times what it gave to Los Angeles in 1984 and 150 per cent more than Atlanta received six years ago.

The city has a new light railway, an enhanced airport and a new intersection for Interstate 80 to give access to the Olympic venues. Infrastructure improvements have cost taxpayers $500m.

The U.S. government, an administration dedicated to private enterprise, has been persuaded to pour close to $ 1.5billion into Utah in the Olympic cause, $566,000 for each competitor. Clearly, somebody sees gold in Olympic medals.

Hopefully, by February 24, when the Olympic flame is extinguished, the world will appreciate the bravery of competitors such as Briton Alex Coomber, who launches herself down the mountain on a 'tea-tray', and marvel at skiing's new Alberto Tomba, America's Bode Miller.

We shall appreciate that curlers targeting stones on houses are unlikely to be arrested for criminal damage, or Swedish ski-jumper Jan Boklov charged with offensive behaviour for exhibiting his very special V-sign in public.

We may even, possibly, understand what American mogul skier Jonny Moseley is saying, because going into the Games we only have his words for it: 'If I can come down, throw a 360 mute grab up top, ski the middle clean, and do the Dinner Roll at the bottom with a bute grab, it's over. Knockout punch. Right there.' Quite.