VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Maryke Bruin and Jelle Groot, tourists from Holland, were taking a few holiday snaps of the Vancouver 2010 Countdown Clock on Thursday, and figuring the timepiece on one side of the Vancouver Art Gallery looked pretty good.Then they walked around the steel-glass-and-red-cedar structure that is counting down the days to the start of the Winter Games -- and stared in astonishment.There were streaks of white paint across the steel of the nearly 20-foot-high structure, which weighs more than 2,500 pounds and was donated to the city by Omega, the official timekeeper of the Games. A workman was using a hose to attack the paint with jets of scalding hot water to counter the latest attack of vandalism on one of the most visible icons of the coming Games."It's so crazy," said Bruin, shaking her head at the damage. Groot agreed, calling it "stupid" to damage a symbol of an event deemed as being for all people.Just after midnight Wednesday, police received a call that three people had doused the clock with white paint. Police arrested two 19-year-old men and a 20-year-old woman blocks away. Their clothes and hands were covered with paint, said Constable Jana McGuinness of the Vancouver Police Department.Mischief charges are pending against the three, she said.Although this isn't the first time the clock has been vandalized, McGuinness said it was too early to say if the trio were linked to organized protest. The clock has been the focus of trouble from its debut, with Olympic organizers reporting at least five previous cases of notable vandalism.But Renee Smith-Valade, communications vice president for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, said Thursday they are sticking by the showpiece device."We chose that location because it's central; it's easily accessible. It's highly visible," she said. "We still believe it's the best permanent home for the clock, but inevitably when you put anything -- a piece of sculpture, a countdown clock -- in a public place, you take a certain amount of risk, so the best you can do is manage that."The clock is no longer protected 24/7 by guards on-site, but "there is surveillance on the clock 24/7," she said, declining to be specific.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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