Dutch speed-skating king goes for double Olympic gold, coalition parties are at each other's throats over Afghan mission, Amsterdam faces up to metro-tunnel risks, father of Natalee Holloway suspect dies and Carnival revellers risk frostbite.

Super Sven wants double Olympic gold
With the 2010 Winter Olympics ready to hit Dutch TV screens this evening the Dutch press are getting well and truly into the swing of things. "Let the Games commence!" pronounces AD. De Telegraaf reports that "all eyes are on Sven Kramer", the Netherlands' speed-skating champion who is going for glory in four events. He tells his one and only press conference: "I won't be satisfied with anything less than two gold medals." Under the headline "Sven is our trump card in Vancouver", the paper says 60 percent of its readers think he's going to deliver the goods at his two strongest distances, the 5 km and 10 km.

While Super Sven has arrived at the Vancouver Games looking invincible, Trouw shows the other side of the sporting coin, with a feature on skater Renate Groenewold, reigning world champion at 3000 metres. She performed disastrously at the Olympic qualifying tournament and told the press "with a trembling voice and tears in her eyes" that "skating just wasn't fun anymore". She scraped through nevertheless and, as she lines up to compete for Olympic glory, she reflects on how cruel sport can be. "Last year I vowed to bow out in Vancouver with fellow skater Carl Verheijen. I had a terrible season and he had a great one. Yet I'm here and he's sitting at home. That's just the way it goes, I guess."

Afghan mission prompts coalition power play
The issue of whether or not to continue the Dutch military mission in the Afghan province of Uruzgan is pushing the Netherlands coalition government to the brink of collapse if today's papers are to be believed. Trouw talks of "Crucial weeks for the coalition" as tension between Labour and the Christian Democrats continues to mount. The stark differences between the parties - the Christian Democrats are happy to continue the mission while Labour want out - have been accentuated by an official NATO request for continuation. Trouw states that "Labour's 'no' to Uruzgan has left the Christian Democrats feeling they can no longer govern with Labour".

De Volkskrant describes the situation as a "power play" with "high stakes for the coalition parties". The paper points out that it is unusual for NATO to make an official request unless support is more or less assured, leading Labour to suggest that NATO's letter was invited by Christian Democrat Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen in an attempt to crank up the pressure on Labour. De Telegraaf chooses to focus on Christian Democrat accusations that it was Labour who were seeking an official NATO request and that they are now "playing games" by backing out.

In the lead-up to local council elections in which Labour could well fare badly, it looks like we haven't seen the last of the political wrangling on the Afghanistan issue.

Will secrets die with key figure in Holloway case?
All today's papers report the death of Paul van der Sloot, whose son Joran was the main suspect in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway on Aruba in 2005. AD goes into the most depth with the headline "The secret of Natalee Holloway will go to the grave with Paul van der Sloot". It's a quote from Peter R. de Vries, the TV crime reporter who produced a high-profile hidden camera investigation into the case. He tells the paper "I'm absolutely convinced that Paul knew more and that he helped his son that night."

AD also speaks to Natalee Holloway's father, Dave, who hopes that Paul van der Sloot's death might cause new information to surface: "For 4.5 years he checked all the information that came out about the case. Who knows, perhaps all that stress surrounding Joran became too much for him ... Paul can no longer tell us what happened. We can only hope that someone else will dare to come forward now that he's no longer here."

Paul van der Sloot collapsed on the tennis court, probably felled by a heart attack at the relatively young age of 57. His family is declining to comment in the press, stating simply: "We have no desire to stir up the past." They are giving no details of the funeral for fear of attracting too much media attention.

Drill or be damned in Amsterdam
Trouw and de Volkskrant focus on the latest chapter in another long-running saga: the building of a new north-to-south metro line under Amsterdam's city centre. The giant project has been beset by problems, delays and spiralling costs. With drilling work on the tunnel about to start, a special meeting to discuss the risks was held in Amsterdam's City Hall yesterday evening.

Both papers come up with more or less the same headline: "Drilling will go ahead, no matter what". De Volkskrant reports that "what promised to be an evening of heated debate turned out to be a tame affair". Trouw notes that "the experts still can't agree on the risks" and that "the audience at City Hall were not convinced".

It's hard to know what's more unsettling: de Volkskrant's concluding warning from an engineering expert: "Don't order the trains just yet", or Trouw's revelation that "a priest has already been booked to bless the drill".

Frosty start to Carnival
If you thought celebrating Carnival was all about the glitz and glamour of Rio, think again. In its two-page guide to celebrating Carnival in the Netherlands, nrc.next tells us that the southern provinces have been gearing up for the event, as tradition dictates, since 11 minutes past 11 on the 11th day of the 11th month last year.

One thing they don't have to worry about in Rio is frostbite. AD's front page features a warning to Dutch Carnival goers to celebrate indoors this year, as temperatures are expected to plummet to minus 5 degrees Celsius tomorrow evening. Doctors fear the flush of alcohol might fool revellers into thinking they can still party hearty when in fact they're in danger of suffering frozen ears, fingers and toes.