The game guys: England's Commonwealth team head for Delhi despite terror threat

England's best athletes have flocked to its colours for the Commonwealth Games, ignoring terror threats and the example of double world champion Jessica Ennis.

Exactly one hundred accepted selection on Monday, including all but three of the medallists at this month's European Championships. Only heptathlete Ennis and 400m medallists Michael Bingham and Martyn Rooney will be missing.

Going to Delhi for England are European champions Mo Farah, Phillips Idowu and Andy Turner - Dai Greene goes for Wales - as well as defending Commonwealth champions Lisa Dobriskey and Christine Ohuruogu, the Olympic 400m champion. Farah will run both events he won in Barcelona, the 5,000m and 10,000m.

Organisers there will be heartened by the English response after the disappointments of losing Jamaican athletes Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell and British cyclists Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton.

They might have feared more would stay away after it was revealed last week that Metropolitan Police advisers had warned the Commonwealth Games Council for England of possible attacks on 'soft' targets in India in an effort by terrorists to deter foreign athletes. But none of those missing gave security as a reason.
Commonwealth Games

The three Barcelona medallists excused themselves on the grounds that continuing their competitive season until October would mean starting their winter training for the more important World Championships next summer too late.

Jenny Meadows, an 800m medallist in last year's world championships who also declined, has an inflamed achilles tendon which needs rest and treatment before her winter training can begin.

Dobriskey, 26, admitted she was keen to compete because of her experience four years ago in Melbourne. 'It was the highlight of my career. I loved every minute of it,' said the defending 1500m champion, who will also compete at 800m.

'You get very few chances to go to multi-sport championships. The Olympics is the only other one. They're so different from being in a hotel with the athletics team. It changes the sense of occasion.

'There's a noise and a buzz that goes with it. If you can experience that before the London Olympics, it gives you a kind of boost.'

Ohuruogu has been selected on reputation because she has not run a race since the first week of June when she pulled a quadriceps muscle. In spite of her brief season she ranks behind only Jamaicans at 400m this year.

In Berlin, Caster Semenya made it three wins out of three yesterday after 11 months on the sidelines following a series of gender tests.

The South African, who returned to competitive action last month, finished in 1min 59.90sec, ahead of Kenya's Cherono Koech and Italian Elisa Cusma Piccione, one of several competitors who continued to question whether Semenya, 19, belongs in the sport after her success in the final of the 800m at last year's World Championships.

But Semenya's coach Michael Seme said: 'It's up to them to say and do what they want to. As long as the organisers invite us, there is no problem.'

Asked whether Semenya was concerned about what was being said, he responded: 'No. We don't even care about the past, we're just looking forward to new things.'

Semenya's next race is at the Notturna di Milano in Italy on September 9.