ATLAS DISCOVERY PROSPECTS FOR FEW 100 PB^-1

As the LHC provided its first collisions at the energy of 7 TeV in the centre of mass in early spring 2010 and is expected to deliver an integrated luminosity of 1 fb^-1 per experiment over the years 2010 and 2011, the physics discovery prospects for the first few 100 pb^-1 (typically what is expected in 2010) are reviewed, following detailed simulation studies with the ATLAS detector. The status of the detector for the first collisions is also presented.