The gloomy Games

THE CEREMONIAL RELAYING of the Olympic torch before the opening ceremony is supposed to give the host country a patriotic injection of national pride. Who could forget the way America rallied behind the flame before the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles? But the run-up to today’s Games in Turin, Italy, was a dreary obstacle course of shouting leftist demonstrators against a backdrop of an uncertain national election campaign. The route was diverted several times by angry public displays; at one point, the flame itself was nearly stolen when protesters snatched the torch and tried to run off with it.

If all this seems like an ominous introduction to the 2006 Winter Olympics, well, it is. Seldom if ever in the history of the Games has a host country seemed less enthusiastic about the whole production.

Turin was chosen in 1999 to host the Olympics -- before 9/11. Gianni Agnelli, the powerful chairman of the locally based Fiat conglomerate, led the charge to bring the Games to his industrial northern hometown. But Agnelli is dead, Fiat’s in a slump and fears of terrorism -- heightened by Muslim outrage at newspapers in Europe (including Italy) that published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad -- have driven up security costs while perhaps contributing to lackluster ticket sales.

Even the normally boosterish Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is all but ignoring the Games, which seems surprising given that he is fighting for his political life and could benefit from the Olympics’ massive spotlight. Yet Berlusconi has his reasons for staying away: Turin is a stronghold of the opposition, and observers have suggested that he doesn’t want to attach himself too closely in case something goes horribly wrong. Polls show Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia (Go, Italy) party is running behind for the April 9 election, the campaign for which officially kicks off Sunday. Under Italian law, that means the media, including the Berlusconi family’s three television channels, have to give equal time to his opponent, center-left former Prime Minister Romano Prodi, starting Sunday. Prodi apparently isn’t wasting any of his time by appearing at the Olympics, either.

There’s reason to worry about terrorism over the next two weeks, although Italian officials say they are more concerned about unruly anarchists and anti-globalization protesters. The demonstrators’ agenda is a bit vague; they’re upset about things like the Iraq war and a proposed high-speed train line through the Alps, but mostly they just seem like unhappy young people with too little to do. Fortunately, they seldom carry weapons more threatening than rocks.