Opening Ceremonies

The heads of major federal law enforcement agencies and top political leaders will meet on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to discuss strengthening anti-terrorism measures at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. Nearly 5,000 law enforcement officers from 60 local, state and federal agencies have been assigned to the Games as part of a $200 million security plan, but organizers acknowledge that may not be enough in light of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and the Washington area.

The annual Columbia Festival of the Arts is expected to kick off tonight with an unprecedented splash. For the first time, the festival's lineup will also include an opening ceremony, "Lighting up the Lakefront," beginning at sundown. Molly Ross, a self-described "celebration artist," designed the opening activities, which will include fireworks, a lantern parade and music to celebrate the start of the two-week-long festival and Columbia's 34th birthday. Ross solicited help from the community in planning the ceremony, and dozens of people turned out at four workshops last weekend to build more than 100 bamboo and paper lanterns to light the lakefront.

SYDNEY, Australia - The warm-up track next to the Olympic Stadium has seating large enough to accommodate just about any American meet outside of the U.S. trials or the Penn Relays. An informal meet was held there Thursday and Baltimore's James Carter won his heat of the 400-meter intermediate hurdles in an effortless 49.90 seconds. "I basically stopped pushing it with 150 meters to go," Carter said. "I jogged in." It was Carters second 400 hurdles race in his two weeks here after several months of seclusion and practice after the U.S. trials.

IF NOTHING else comes from the Summer Olympic Games, which begin in Sydney tomorrow night with the opening ceremonies, we may finally realize, once and for all, what an annoying country Australia really is. Here the Games haven't even started and I'm already sick of all these bad Crocodile Dundee impersonations from the TV sports guys and all these corny "G'day, mates!" headlines and sappy "How to Speak Australian!" features in the newspapers. Not to mention all these commercials that portray the Aussies as the toughest people on earth, the greatest beer drinkers, etc. Believe me, by the time this is all over, we could have angry mobs with burning torches marching on Outback Steak Houses everywhere.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gail Devers was not distraught after she placed fifth in the 100-meter dash at the U.S. track and field trials for the Olympic Games last Saturday. She won the gold medal in the 100 in 1992 and '96, but now she might actually take in the opening ceremonies in Sydney, Australia. "I've never been to the opening ceremonies," Devers said. "I've always been sitting back in my hotel room, resting and getting ready for the start of the 100 the next day. I can't ever remember marching in the opening ceremony of an Olympics or a world championship.

In support of the Special Olympics Maryland Summer Games to be held tomorrow night through Sunday at the University of Maryland, College Park, state and local law enforcement officers will run a torch relay through Carroll County tomorrow morning. Starting about 9 a.m. on Route 26 at the Frederick County line, members of the Westminster barracks of the Maryland State Police and Carroll County Sheriff's Office and the Westminster Police Department will carry the Special Olympics torch east to Route 27 and north to city police headquarters in Westminster, said 1st Sgt. Dean Richardson, a police spokesman for the event.

For months, the 48-foot lighted tower poking mysteriously above the billboards, pastures and new large-lot developments of Finksburg raised speculation and, at times, fear among its neighbors.Patrons of nearby Jubilee Foods pushed their shopping carts and gawked. At various stages of construction, the gleaming building has been mistaken for a synagogue, a shopping center and a Mexican restaurant.The questions and stares came as no surprise to the founders of the Baltimore region's first Hindu temple.

For hard-core, meat-and-potatoes sports fans, the Olympics, summer or winter, are more staged than the kind of athletic competition they're used to, what with the spectacle of the opening and closing ceremonies, sports they hardly see and athletes they couldn't pick out of a lineup.And most Olympic television coverage, regardless of where the Games are staged, comes through the magic of videotape, which is antithetical to the live manner in which sports fans have been conditioned to expect their sports fix.That's why it was so disheartening during the first night of Nagano competition that bad weather at the men's downhill skiing race knocked out one of the only three scheduled activities that will be shown live in prime time, with Friday's opening ceremonies and the women's downhill on Friday this week being the others.

Days until opening ceremonies: 3.Snowfall: No new snow. Current blanket is 6.3 inches in Nagano city and 85 inches on men's downhill course.Update: Athletes and officials from 72 nations will take part in the upcoming games, making it the biggest winter Olympics. In the 1994 Lillehammer Games, 67 countries participated. The total number of athletes and officials will be announced this week.Going for the gold: Wayne Gretzky and Martin Brodeaur were nowhere in sight. Still, Olympic hockey teams clashed on Japanese ice in a warm-up for the Winter Games.