South Africa look to climb Commonwealth table

South Africa's 2010 Commonwealth Games campaign kicked off in earnest on Saturday after the Queen's Baton Relay arrived in Johannesburg.

Having set a target of 12 medals at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, South Africa's Olympic governing body (Sascoc) has already earmarked the Commonwealth showpiece in New Delhi in October as the first major stepping stone to achieving that goal.

South Africa finished fifth at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, with 38 medals including 12 gold, but Sascoc president Gideon Sam said he hoped the team would improve on that position in New Delhi as the relay kicks off the nation's campaign in earnest.

“This arrival of the baton is just the beginning of our process to stabilise our own programmes and actions we're going to take on our way to Delhi,” Sam said.

“We can't just stay at number five, we need to move on. The whip will be cracked between now and when we get on that plane to Delhi.”

Deputy sports minister Gert Oosthuizen, echoed Sam, saying he also expected the team to improve their place on the medals table.

Australia topped the table in 2006 with a massive 221-medal haul, with England, Canada and India placing ahead of South Africa, who were the highest placed African nation.

“We can't be happy with the same place again,” Oosthuizen said, “and I certainly hope we will climb the ladder.”

Ahead of the 2006 Games, the Queen's Baton Relay covered only the Nelson Mandela Bay area, and this is the first time it will include other regions in South Africa, including Durban, Cape Town and the Free State.

The baton, which contains a message for the athletes from Queen Elizabeth II, left Buckingham Palace on October 29 last year and will arrive in the Indian capital ahead of the 12-day event after visiting all 71 participating nations.

The baton arrived from Mauritius on Saturday and leaves SA shores on Tuesday, with its next stop in Lesotho.

The 19th Commonwealth Games will be held between October 3-14 and includes 17 sporting disciplines.

India to play 7s in Fiji

INDIA'S national rugby team will feature at this year's Marist 7s tournament as its build up to the Honk Kong 7s tournament and the Commonwealth Games.

India's rugby coach and former Nasinu rep Usaia Biumaiwai says discussions were underway to bring his international team play against the best local club teams.

India is the 2010 Commonwealth Games hosts in September.

Biumaiwai said playing in Fiji would be a good build up to expose his players to the game.

He said the Fiji Rugby Union was aware of India's intentions and soon a decision would be made.

"Rugby is still developing in India and I'm arranging with FRU to bring a team over in March. I want to expose my players and get them to play against the local clubs in Fiji."

"This will be a build up to the Hong Kong and Commonwealth games. We're hosting the games and I want the India team to achieve an improved performance in front of its home crowd."

Biumaiwai left for India two years ago after spending some time in Thailand.

Rugby is minor sport in India.

"Cricket in India is like rugby in Fiji. Rugby is still developing and a lot of people in India are unaware that rugby is played in their country."

"I'm trying my best in developing the sport and I do believe this would be a good opportunity to impress the home crowd and draw their attention to rugby," he said.

"Playing against the Fiji club sides would be a boost and we hope everything comes out in our favour."

Britain satisfied with Commonwealth Games security

A delegation of security experts from Britain Thursday expressed its satisfaction with the security arrangements for the Commonwealth Games to be held in the national capital in October.

Four UK security experts visited Delhi Jan 11-13 for meetings with the Indian government and Delhi Police to discuss various aspects of security planning for the forthcoming 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and the 2012 London Olympics, the British high commission said here in a press statement.

The delegation had positive discussions with their Indian counterparts and found security planning for the Commonwealth Games was progressing well, given there are still nine months to go. The UK looks forward to working closely with the Indian authorities, organising committee and the Commonwealth Games Federation on such issues in the run up to the Commonwealth Games and the London Olympics, the statement added.

The Britain-India Summit in January 2008 had agreed for cooperation on security for major sporting events.

"As we are both hosts of major sporting events, India and the UK both have a lot to gain from this cooperation. We had some very good discussions. India has completed a lot of planning work in recent months," the statement quoted Jim Busby, Olympic and Paraolympic Specialist Operations of the Metropolitan Police Service, as saying.

Bolt will find it difficult to participate in CWGG: O'Brien

The fastest man on earth Usain Bolt will find it difficult to represent Jamaica in this year's Commonwealth Games, former American decathlete Dan O'Brien said. ''My advice is irrelevant but it's going to be a tough push for Bolt to run in the Commonwealth Games. He has taken part in the world championship followed by the Olympics and again the world championship. To do it year after year is difficult,'' the 1996 Olympic decathlon champion said here today. The three-time world decathlon champion, here as the event ambassador for this Sunday's seventh Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, said for the US athletes 2010 is a lean year but he would not be surprised if Bolt skips the Commonwealth Games to be held in October in Delhi. ''This is a Down Year for the US athletes.

He (Bolt) has had a heavy schedule and I can understand (if he skips CWG) his pushing forward for London (venue of 2012 Olympic Games),'' the one-time world champion of the gruelling ten-event athletic discipline said. The 44-year-old Oregon-born athlete, who clinched back-to-back world championship title in 1991, 1993 and 1995 before clinching the gold at the Atlanta Games, also hailed Bolt as someone who has the ability to transcend his sport. ''Bolt is great for the sport. He has the ability to transcend track and field like Tiger Woods has transcended golf and Michael Phelps has been able to do in swimming,'' O'Brien said. But the former world champion, who idolised British decathlon great Daley Thompson and US heptathlon legend Jackie Joyner Kersee, did not think much of Bolt's publicised plans to take up to 400-metre racing in future.

''Every great sprinter says he's going to move up (in the distance). But it's going to be hard for him to step up to the 400m which is not a cakewalk. To do it four or five times in a season is difficult,'' he said. O'Brien also ridiculed tennis champion Serena Williams's reluctance to undergo regular drug testing and said such tests in athletics has helped in improving the sport's image. ''It's ridiculous when someone like Serena Williams who earns 15 million dollars a year says it's inconvenient to give a drug sample.

In my career I used to be tested once a month and not once after I retired,'' he said. ''As far as I'm concerned I have a zero tolerance for performance-enhancing drugs and my coaches would have refused to train me had I been on drugs,'' the former athlete said.

Hindu party wants Commonwealth Games beef ban

India's leading opposition party wants a ban on beef at the Commonwealth Games later this year.

Rajnath Singh, a former president and senior member of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), wrote to Games organisers demanding beef be kept off the menu, media said.

"Cow is considered sacred in India," Singh wrote to Suresh Kalmadi, who heads the organising committee for the October 3-14 Games in New Delhi, DNA newspaper reported.

"The Commonwealth Games have become an important event where we should use every possible opportunity to highlight our cultural values and age-old traditions.

"By removing beef from the menu card, the organising committee would not only empathise with the popular sentiment, but also save the Games from agitations and other possible controversies."

Most Hindus worship cows and do not eat beef. Several states prohibit the slaughter of cows.

Some 6,000 competitors and 2,000 officials from 71 nations are expected for the Games.

Pune students design device to detect pollution near Village

Students at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune, have designed a special device which will enable volunteers at the Commonwealth Games this October to collect primary data for transport emission around the Games Village.

The device is part of the System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research project, undertaken by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and IITM to keep a check on pollution during the October 3-14 event.

Project director Dr Gufran Beig of IITM said, “Emission by vehicles is a major contributor to air pollution. This calculator-size device will be given to students to record primary data to calculate vehicular pollution in and around the Commonwealth Games Village.”

According to Beig, the Rs 15-crore project is the first air quality-forecasting project to be conducted in the country.

Divided in three categories — trucks and buses, four-wheelers and two-wheelers — students will be able to record data such as the number of vehicles passing a particular point, the number of vehicles waiting for signal at a given moment, the duration for which vehicles halt at these signals, and timings when vehicular population is maximum, among others.

“This data will then be used as input for emission inventory that will help analyse air pollution, with parameters such as emission per minute and direction of air flow,” Beig said. “Along with this set-up, we will also analyse data such as increased emission levels due to generator sets during powercuts, increased carbon levels due to burning of fossil fuels in villages around Delhi, along with data related to vegetation cover in and around the city.”

The data will then be supplied to the Delhi government’s Environment department for further action to control emissions. Having started the project a year ago, IITM plans a mock drill three or four months before the Games, Beig said.

Mehrullah eager to make another comeback

Fighting against time and adverse circumstances, Pakistan's star boxer and Asian Games gold medallist Mehrullah Lassi is still hoping to represent his country in this year's mega assignments of India and China and has rubbished the rumours that his career is over.

No, my career is not over yet. I want to play in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games this year and I have been training hard under the supervision of Muhammad Siddiq Qambrani and as soon as I am match fit I will inform the Pakistan boxing authorities about my availability,the star boxer, who had got a record purse of Rs5 million for lifting gold in the 2002 Seoul Asian Games, told The News during a detailed chat on Wednesday.

Commonwealth Games are slated to be held in Delhi from October 3 to 14 while China will host the Asian Games from November 12 to 27.

A top official of the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) informed the other day that Mehrullah's career is now over.

Last year, we gave him a chance to use his muscles in the World Championships, in Milan, but he could not prove himself and I believe that his career is now over, the official said.

Mehrullah along with his teammate Faisal Karim was slapped with a life ban by the PBF in 2006 after both were tested positive for using cannabis at Colombo's South Asian Games.

However, later it was converted into a two-year suspension as per International Boxing Association (AIBA) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules.

The two-year ban expired in August 2008 and after having gone through rigorous training both at home and abroad, the boxer was given a chance to play in the World Championships last September last year, but he failed to impress on his comeback, when he lost to Sandro Schaer of Germany 1-11 in his preliminary round bout.

If I did not find myself capable of playing at the international level this year then at least I will be able to prepare few youngsters, also including my two brothers Samiullah (Navy) and Sanaullah (KPT) to represent Pakistan in these major competitions,he said.

He admitted that he is facing problems to adapt himself to the new boxing rules, saying, unlike in the past, the game has become very fast and the boxers will have to be more accurate in both offense and defence.

I will face no problem in defence but it could take time, even a year, to bring my attack upto the modern standards, the boxer said.

Mehrullah is also not satisfied with the kind of training being imparted to the boxers during the national team camp.

How can I join the camp, as here the coaches don't provide training according to the temperament of the boxers and normally concentrate on only two or three boxers out of the 20 to 25 boys present at the camp, he said.

Mehrullah also met light welterweight world champion Amir Khan on the closing day of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto International Boxing tournament here last week and informed him about his resolve that he is still there and is determined to represent Pakistan in the twin major assignments this year.