Keeping an eye on the Commonwealth

Less than two months before the opening ceremonies for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, turmoil reigns as venues are untested or still under construction and top officials have been turfed by the organizing committee in a corruption scandal.
The Commonwealth Games Association of Canada is monitoring the situation and still intends to send a team of some 400 athletes, coaches and officials, CGAC director of sport Scott Stevenson says. He said CGAC president Thomas Jones this week will report his update of the situation after visiting India last week.

“But at this point, we're certainly going,” Stevenson said Friday.

“There have been issues, but we've been able to predict them. The one issue that causes some concern is that they haven't been able to test the venues fully. If they haven't been able to put them through the wringer, we don't know to expect. But if we can cope better than other countries do, we'll be ahead of those countries.”

The New Delhi organizing committee has suspended two officials for alleged financial irregularities, and a third resigned in an uncomfortable corruption scandal. Games organizers also terminated a contract with an Australian firm hired to raise as much as $122-million in sponsorships, citing “non-performance.”

India's government is using the 2010 Commonwealth Games as a spur to upgrade New Delhi's infrastructure and is globally spending $7.9-billion on Games-related building, including stadiums, swimming pools, cycling tracks and tennis courts. One recent report said the budget has increased by 17-fold over the original estimate.

But Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the organizing committee, said he will not entertain public calls for his resignation.

“The buck stops with me to deliver a good Games,” Kalmadi told Times Now. “If anything goes wrong, I am responsible.”

Stevenson said Canada's monitoring of the situation has been “fairly accurate in projecting the time of completion and there haven't been too many surprises.”

Some Canadian athletes, including top hurdlers Perdita Felicien and Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, have declined places on the Commonwealth Games team. Track team officials have said the rejections were a combination of concerns over catching a long-lasting stomach bug and the Games coming late in the season and possibly interfering with preparations for the 2011 world championships in South Korea and the 2012 London Olympics.

Meanwhile, the Australian team has cited security as a concern, telling athletes everything they need will be in the village and not to go sight-seeing.

“There's not going to be athletes coming and going as they please like at previous Games,” Australian high-performance coach Eric Hollingsworth said. “If they do need to leave the village, they'll have the nearest thing to an MI5 [security service] tracking device on them.”

Canada will send some of its top athletes in their respective sports.

Olympic gold medalist Carol Huynh, two-time Olympic medalist Tonya Verbeek, and heavyweight Arjan Bhullar, a Pan American Games gold medalist, are part of the wrestling team. In cycling, Canada will send Tour de France veteran Michael Barry, time-trial specialist Svein Tuft, 2008 Olympian Zach Bell and points-race world champion Tara Whiten.

Some 8,000 athletes from 71 member countries and states that comprise the Commonwealth are expected to attend the 2010 Games in India.