Road to Torino

There are any number of dark sides, really... logistics problems, inadequate venues, and the ever-present specters of doping, cheating, biased judging, etc. Then there's the overwhelming security challenge posed by the Olympics, one made even more daunting in this age of terrorism.

In fact, terrorism is not a new threat to the Games -- it's already happened. Tragedy struck at the Summer Games in Munich in 1972, when Palestinian terrorists took the Israeli Olympic team hostage. In the end, all 11 Israeli athletes were murdered and Olympic security has never been the same.

Fast forward to today. With global terrorism a sad reality, fears of an attack are greater than ever. When 9/11 occurred months before the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake, organizers briefly considered calling the Games off altogether. Fortunately they didn't, and things went off without a hitch. NATO assisted with air patrols at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

Since 2001, a number of European countries have been struck by terrorists. Quite apart from the tempting target an Olympic Games provides, Italy has reason to fear it may be next on terrorists' hit list. The Italian prime minister has publicly vowed that come February 2006, Torino will be the safest place to be in Italy.

So those of us who are watching the news leading up to Torino are seeing more on this topic as well, including this article in the Swiss media reporting that Switzerland's air force will support Italy's in providing air cover in the skies over Torino next winter.

Swissinfo | Swiss sign up to Winter Olympics air defence

Here's hoping that once again, it all goes off without a hitch.

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