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“Helping confused tourists to find their way around our beautiful city helps improve our international image and can also be very rewarding,” it said.

“However, leading them astray is much more fun.” The Games, which open next Friday, will showcase Australia and Sydney to a global television audience of billions. “The time for any political pointscoring on matters relating to the Games is over,” Prime Minister John Howard said this week. “It is important that all Australians work together to demonstrate to the world what a marvellous, cohesive, open, friendly and welcoming country Australia really is.”

Ten suspects probed
AT least 10 athletes were being investigated following drugs tests conducted in the lead-up to the Sydney Olympics, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) general secretary Harri Syvasalmi told AFP.

One of the 10, British track cyclist Neil Campbell, had returned a positive test and been withdrawn from the British Olympic team.

However, Syvasalmi could not say whether Hungarian sprinters Gabor Dobos and Judit Szekeres, suspended for two years overnight by the International Amateur Athletics Federation, were included in the 10.

“It’s a little unclear because the irregular cases are reported back to the athlete’s federation which processes the results to decide if it is positive or not,” he said.

WADA began testing in April and plans to conduct 2500 tests by the end of the year. The International Olympic Committee is also conducting about 400 tests for EPO, the endurance-enhancer erythropoietin. The Australian Sports Drug Agency will also conduct about 2000 tests prior to and during the Games.

`Olympics-free zone’
Fed up with Olympic hype, the citizens of Walhalla population, 21 have declared their old Australian gold mining town an “Olympics-free zone”.Visitors overheard gossiping about track times, sailing conditions, sports injuries or doping scandals will be fined on the spot.

Unpatriotic? Not at all, huffed Rhonda Aquilina, who with husband norm runs Walhalla’s only general store in the outback town in Western Victoria.

“A lot of people are saying `good on ya’,” she declared.

“We’re offering a haven for people who have had enough.”

In a sports-mad nation now working itself into an Olympic frenzy, norm is even planning to censor the morning newspapers by taking a pair of scissors to all stories on the games.

Michael Leaney, the proprietor of the star hotel, and president of the Walhalla and mountain rivers tourism association, despairs of his fellow Australians who can talk of little else except Olympic medals.

“We’ve lost the plot somewhere,” he said.

“I thought the Olympics was supposed to be about competition, not about which country wins the most gold medals.”

At 149 Australian dollars a night for a double room, Leaney said the Star hotel had taken “quite a few bookings” since news that Walhalla had opted out of the Olympics became a discussion point in the National media.

India to supply equipment
Most of the equestrian teams participating in the Sydney Olympics will use saddles and other equipment manufactured by Indian companies.

Products like riding breeches, gloves, polo shirts, cotton jerseys, saddle and cleaning box are exported from India.

India is a one of the largest producers of harness and saddlery products in the world and holds eight per cent of the global market.

The export of saddelry and harness items have clocked 12 per cent growth rate touching Rs. 150 crore in 1999-2000. Kanpur is a major production centre of saddelry goods and accounted for 95 per cent of the total exports from India.