Scottish team building and settling well at Delhi base

Home Nations athletes appeared to be putting concerns over their accommodation in the Games Village firmly behind them yesterday to focus on preparations for the Commonwealth Games which open in Delhi on Sunday.
The build-up of athletes from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is gathering pace and those who have already arrived seem satisfied with the village facilities.

Games organisers, responding to complaints that rooms in some of the accommodation blocks were dirty, have had up to 4,000 people working around the clock to get the accommodation ready as competitors from across the world arrive in Delhi.

The accommodation initially allocated to Team Scotland athletes was branded unfit for human habitation.

But Team Scotland head of media Katriona Bush said accommodation for the Scottish athletes was up to an "acceptable standard" and athletes were now able to concentrate on their preparations. "People are settled and happy. Our athletes have started training and getting focused on their events," she said. "However we are still concerned that facilities are up to standard in all the accommodation blocks. We are joining forces with other nations in an effort to ensure that it (accommodation) is the same for everyone."

A further 42 members of Team Scotland from lawn bowls, boxing, wrestling and rugby sevens arrived at the Games Village yesterday. That took the number of athletes already in Games Village accommodation to 161 out of an overall team of 191.

The group of 42 had originally been due to arrive last Thursday but were delayed because the Games Village rooms were not clean enough to move into at that point.

Freestyle wrestler Tracy Connell, one of the Scottish athletes affected by the delayed arrivals, said: "I'm really thrilled to finally be in Delhi and looking forward to getting started with training. We've explored some of the village and so far everything looks great."

Andrew Turnbull, of the Scotland rugby sevens squad, said: "We didn't come expecting five-star accommodation. Our apartments are really nice and the food is good so we have no complaints."