by Dave James
ATHENS, Aug 12 (AFP) - Greece's athletics superstar Kostadinos Kenteris cast a cloud of gloom over the Athens Olympics on Thursday just a day ahead of the opening ceremony which will mark the showpiece's return to its ancient home.
In the daytime, organisers had been confidently predicting a roaring success despite the Games' troubled and expensive build-up.
They were also buoyed by South Korea setting three new world records in the archery competition as well as Iraq's stunning return to the football tournament which they marked with a 4-2 win over Portugal.
By night, however, as the Olympic flame burned brightly inside the 2,500-year-old temple at the Acropolis, the organisers found themselves pushed into an embarrassing corner when Kenteris, their 200m Olympic champion, failed to appear at a mandatory dope test.
Kenteris, who scored a shock victory in Sydney four years ago, had been ordered to attend a test at 7:30 pm local time along with the 2000 Olympic silver medallist in the women's 100m, Ekaterini Thanou.
But neither athlete showed at the appointed time.
The duo then asked to take a test later in the evening at the clinic in the Olympic Village rather than at the anti-doping laboratory in Athens.
A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee said they were investigating the report.
The news came as a huge blow to the organisers who had earlier predicted their Games were ready to roll despite the spectre of drugs and terrorism casting a shadow over the multi-billion dollar showpiece.
With just a day left before the opening of the most heavily guarded Olympics in history, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, the head of the organising committee was in no doubt about the Games' success.
"What we promised we will deliver - trust us," Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said.
"The Greek people have done things they have never done before to make these Games a success. We are confident. We are at ease."
The birthplace of the ancient Olympics more than 2,700 years ago, Athens was also the host for the first edition of the modern summer games in 1896 and is now putting the finishing touches to a huge "homecoming" party.
On Friday, 10,000 athletes representing 202 countries will march together in front of 70,000 spectators at the opening ceremony to begin just over a fortnight of competition that is costing 7.2 billion dollars to stage.
Some 1.5 billion dollars of that budget will be spent on an unprecedented security operation designed to deter terrorists in the first summer games since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Heads of state and royal VIPS attending Friday's opening, with Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President George Bush among the guests, will be protected by a vast security blanket.
A total of 110,000 security personnel will be on duty at the games, with airspace around venues tightly guarded and navy gunboats patrolling the waters around the city.
The feelgood factor was also boosted by South Korea's world record surge.
Im Dong-hyun set a new world mark for the men's 72-arrow with a score of 687 while, in the women's event, Park Sung-Hyun set a new record for the women's 72 Arrow scoring 682 points to beat the previous best mark set by Natalia Valeeva of Italy earlier this year, by just three points.
The Korean women also finished first, second and third and their combined score smashing the previous team world record that was set by their compatriots at the Sydney Games.
The combined 216 arrow score of Park, Lee Sung-Jin and Yun Mi-Jin was 2030, 36 points higher than their compatriots had managed four years ago.
On the football pitch, Iraq marked their return to Olympic football after a 16-year absence with a fairytale 4-2 victory over Portugal as highly rated Italy scrambled a lucky 2-2 draw with Ghana.
Iraq took the upper hand of a controversial Group D match against Portugal when the Europeans had Fulham's Luis Boa Morte sent off in the second-half with the scores locked at 2-2.
Iraq had fallen behind through a Haidar Jabar own goal before hitting back to lead thanks to Emad Mohammed and Hawar Mulla Mohammed.
Portugal were level by the break thanks to Bosingwa before the match exploded in the second half when Boa Morte saw red card which paved the way for Younis Mahmoud to score the third. Substitute Salih Sadir wrapped up the famous upset win in injury time.
In Group B, Alberto Gilardino grabbed an equaliser seven minutes from time as Italy fought back from two goals down to scrape a 2-2 draw against Ghana, the 1992 Olympic bronze medallists.
In Thursday's other games, Paraguay defeated Asian powerhouses Japan 4-3 in a Group B game in Salonika while Morocco and Costa Rica drew 0-0 in Group D.
Meanwhile, Dick Pound, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirmed that this will be the first time a test for human growth hormone (HGH) will be in operation at the Games.
Growth hormone has been considered one of the unexplored frontiers of drug testing as it has previously been undetectable.
Pound said there would nowhere for drug cheats to hide at the Olympics as tests now existed to detect HGH, the endurance-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) and so-called designer steroids such as tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), which have been chemically engineered to deceive the testers.
"The likelihood of getting caught is getting larger ever day," he said. "EPO, growth hormone, any designer steroid we know about, we now have a test for."