Bitter and sweet start to 20th Winter Games

German men took the first two gold medals in the 20th Winter Games yesterday but the Olympic dream was spoilt for one team member when a sports arbitration court refused to lift a five-day suspension.

US speed skater Chad Hedrick also brought a smile to US first lady Laura Bush and started his quest to equal a record medal haul of five golds by winning his first in the 5,000 metres.

The speedskating rink shook to Italian screams, though, when Enrico Fabris skated a spectacular last dash to win the bronze, the hosts' first medal of the Games.

The first day hit a sweet-and-sour note for the Germany team.

It looked like it was their day when Michael Greis won the 20km skiing-and-shooting individual biathlon event and Georg Hettich staged an upset to take the individual 15km Nordic combined hill Gundersen event that includes skiing and jumping.

Greis, 29, performed almost perfectly, missing just one of 20 targets on the shooting range to clinch his first Olympic title from Norwegian five-time winner, Ole Einar Bjorndalen. Hettich got an early lead and held on to it.

But there was little joy for cross-country skiing relay champion Evi Sachenbacher Stehle, who would miss her strongest event today after an appeal against a suspension over a higher than normal red blood cell count was rejected.

German ski federation doctor Ernst Jakob said she had a naturally higher count of red blood cells, but his arguments and her tears failed to sway the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It said it would give written reasons today.

Red blood cell levels can be raised by high altitude training or by drugs. A higher red blood cell count helps boost athletes' endurance as the cells carry oxygen to muscles.

Eleven others have been suspended on what the International Ski Federation say are health grounds, for five days, but for most of those the ban would end before their events begin.

Vice-president of Russia's Olympic Committee, Viktor Khotochkin, said he believed the higher levels of red blood cells found in cross-country skiers Pavel Korosteljev and Nikolai Pankratov would soon be lowered as they acclimatised.

"I believe that everything will be all right," he told Reuters.

Ethiopia's Robel Teklemariam, due to become the first Ethiopian to compete at the Winter Olympics, said he learned about the decision to suspend him after he carried the nation's flag in the opening ceremony.

"I know in my heart that I didn't do anything wrong," he told Reuters. "I feel really sorry for the other athletes... there are athletes out there who have been suspended from races that they've been training for years."

Low-key protests

The start of competition overshadowed protesters who hoped to use a visit by Laura Bush, the US first lady, to Turin as a chance to air their anger over globalisation, Olympic sponsorship deals and a planned high-speed train line through northern Italy.

At earlier demonstrations, their numbers were in the hundreds but only about 20 protested in a square near the library visited by Bush.

While it has failed so far to snow in Turin this month, Bush's return to the United States, ironically, was delayed until today because of a major snowstorm brewing in the Washington area, her spokeswoman said.