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Two days to go and the last minute rush ahead of the 20th Winter Olympics has gone into overdrive in Turin.

Friday's opening ceremony is expected to be followed by 35,000 spectators inside Stadio Olimpico stadium 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 DAmpezzo in 1956.

While Turin itself and the surrounding mountain venues are ready for the action which gets underway for real on Saturday, the day after the opening ceremony, the biggest problem remains traffic headaches.

Getting the Italian drivers to respect the lanes reserved for Olympic vehicles is proving a problem as is the 2,000 bus drivers who have been drafted in from all around Italy and are also unfamiliar with the local roads.

"Like with all games, the final stretch is always the most difficult one," said Rogge.

"Here and there, a couple of issues need to be solved. But there are still a few days until the opening ceremony. I'm very confident these will be very good games."

"What is important is that the fundamentals are very good," he said. "There is no structural issue. There is nothing that cannot be solved in a matter of days. I'm confident everything will be done by the opening ceremony."

The problem over doping controls has been resolved with Rogge hailing the agreement reached with the Italian government which allows controls to be carried out by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Italian Sports Minister and senior IOC member Mario Pescante confirmed that there would be no police raids on the Athletes Village.

There had been fears of police raiding the village and taking athletes away in handcuffs, but Pescante dismissed such fears.

"Police will not enter the village. This is not going to happen," said Pescante.

But he 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.

The Italian government easily survived a confidence vote in the lower house of parliament on Tuesday on a series of measures bolstering security for the Games.

The chamber of deputies voted by 307 votes to 207 in favour of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government, to back legislation boosting by more than 1,000 the number of police deployed for the Games.

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

Meanwhile, ticket sales have also picked up with more than 700,000 - 85 per cent of the total - already sold and with organizers planning to offer low-price tickets to school children for less popular events.

But ski legend Jean-Claude Killy believes that organizers could have trouble meeting their target of having more than 50 per cent of the seats occupied even for blue riband events such as alpine skiing.

"There's a real problem for alpine skiing," Killy said, adding that it was "becoming more and more tricky" to gain media coverage, partly because attention largely focused on personalities in the sport.

"The Italian example shows that interest is directly linked to the skiers, whereas before, the sport could carry itself," he added.

For the Turin Games, Killy - who heads the IOC's coordination commission - underlined extensive efforts by the Italian organizers, but admitted that his biggest fear would be "logistical problems" triggered by postponements.

"For example, a 24 to 48 hour postponement of the men's downhill has been tested. But between the test and the reality, there are sometimes some surprises," he cautioned.

(China Daily February 9, 2006)