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Who's the greatest of them all? 2006 supplies the answers
(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2005-12-31 07:37

As with most modern Olympics, summer and winter, the build-up has been dogged by legal and financial problems.

2006The most public is the Italian government's refusal to suspend its tough anti-doping laws.

Under Italian law, athletes caught doping face criminal charges. To the IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) such athletes are not criminals and should be punished with suspension by their sports federations.

Attention will be on the duel on the slopes between Austrian great Hermann Maier and American rival Bode Miller.

Maier missed the last Olympics in Salt Lake City after he was involved in a serious motorcycle crash in 2001 but he picked up two gold medals in the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

The 28-year-old Miller is never far from the headlines.

The American found himself embroiled in a doping row after he said he was suprised that erythropoietin (EPO) was an illegal substance, even though he did not use it himself.

He also gave out mixed signals about his motivation although he has recently confirmed that he will take part in the Olympics.

"I'm still not really that motivated," he said. "I hoped that it would be better. The racing itself still gives me the area I need to explore my limits which is one reason I'm continuing."

The sun may have set on the British Empire, but the Commonwealth Games is still alive and well.

Melbourne hosts the latest version from March 15-26 but, in a sign of the times, will be locked in a security blanket for the duration.

Australian jet fighters and combat helicopters will guard the Games from a possible September 11-style attack by enforcing an air "exclusion zone" within a 75-kilometer (45-mile) radius of the main venues.
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