'Let's make Delhi the Asian capital of sports'

Delhi should focus on being the Asian capital of sports and work towards bidding for the Olympic Games, V.K. Verma, director general of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, said Friday.

"The security has been unhitched until now and the infrastructure development has been going full swing, all in preparation for the Commonwealth Games. But we have to ensure that the same is being maintained even after the games so that we can hope to win the bid for the Olympic games after this," Verma said on the concluding day of the two-day Delhi Tourism conclave.

"A sports culture has to be inculcated here. The trigger has been the Commonwealth Games, but let's maintain it. Let's make Delhi the Asian capital for sports," he added.

Saying that the onus now lies on every Delhiite to get the "return on investment" that the Commonwealth Games have been, Verma said: "During the Beijing Olympics, the head of the tourism department said 'the world has given us 16 days, we will give them 5,000 years', meaning that the event would be so spectacular that it will be indelible from one's memory.

"We have got 12 days (Commonwealth Games are between Oct 3-14) and without sounding too boisterous, let's say that in the next 20 years we will be at the pinnacle of all other must-visit places in the world." he said.

450 officers will ensure Games are dope free

Around 1,500 samples from athletes will be randomly tested to make the 2010 Commonwealth Games dope free. On the job will be some 450 Indians who are being selected and trained as dope control officers (DCOs).

"We will test some 1,500 samples. For this, we are training 447 DCOs," Munish Chander, deputy director general (doping control) of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, told IANS.

"During major events like the Commonwealth Games, the athletes have to go through many rounds of selection trials and it is here that they take to prohibited performance-enhancing substances."

Chander said after stringent scrutiny, people from a science, MBBS or physical education background were being selected as DCOs and trained in England, Austria and Germany.

"It would be an asset for the country to have internationally qualified DCOs and international standards of testing," he said.

He said there was very little dope control awareness in India and fewer qualified sports medicine experts or dope control specialists.

"There are only around 50 professionally-trained DCOs who usually collect samples at sports events here, but the Commonwealth Games are too big an event."

Delhi has the advantage of having the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) approved National Dope Testing Laboratory (NTDL), which is one of 35 in the world and one of six in Asia.

The Games doping control procedures and the lab came in for praise from Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) president Mike Fennell during his visit to Delhi last week.

The lab at Lodhi Road's CGO complex in south Delhi will be fully operational during the Oct 3-14 Games. It has successfully conducted tests during the Commonwealth Shooting Championship, the Hockey World Cup and the Commonwealth Boxing Championship in the last one month to finetune the procedures.

P.S.M. Chandran, a sports medicine expert with the Sports Authority of India and president of the International Federation for Sports Medicine, said there is an acute shortage of manpower in sports medicine.

"Hopefully, this will be noted during the Games. The organisers should provide the best facilities to the home team as well to ensure better performance. The professionals inducted should preferably have experience in sports and should not be left in the hands raw government hospital doctors," Chandran told IANS.

"So far 250-odd people have been selected and trained. It is a three-phase training programme and the candidates must get through a written test in July. We are choosing those with a background of medicine or science. Then they will be certified for two years," said Chandran.

Sample collection stations will be set up at all major Games venues, including the Nehru Stadium and training venues.

The Games Village on the banks of the river Yamuna, which will accommodate 8,000 athletes and team officials, will also have pre-event sample collection stations.

Weight lifters, athletes, competitors in aquatic sports, wrestlers and boxers are usually on the radar of drug controllers looking out for the prohibited substances.

The Indian Wrestling Federation escaped a ban when several weightlifters tested positive last year. A fine of Rs.500,000 was slapped on it. The federation has previously been banned in 2004 and 2006 for drug abuse by its athletes.

Chander blames this on the ignorance of not only the athletes but also the training staff.

"It is sad that the 30-odd national sports federations don't have a system in place or DCOs to educate the athletes, who are largely from a rural background with little knowledge about the prohibited substances. Our sports federations really need to educate the athletes so that they don't suffer," he said.

Chander said his department planned to release a series of booklets in regional languages or at least in Hindi on the dangers of drug abuse.

Indian govt pours money for Commonwealth Games

The Indian government on Friday approved an additional 152 million dollars for this year’s Commonwealth Games in a desperate effort to ensure the venues are finished in time.

The organisers of the October 3-14 Games in New Delhi will get the money for temporary fittings, fixtures and equipment required to make the venues operationally ready, a government statement said.

“The installation of these high end items of overlays (temporary fittings, fixtures and equipment) will set high standards for technological excellence and capacity enhancement,” the statement added.

“The installation of overlays is scheduled to commence from June. The overlays will be removed from the venues immediately after the Games.”

The 12-day sporting extravaganza is already the most expensive Commonwealth Games in history with an infrastructure and organising budget of two billion dollars.

The previous edition in Melbourne, Australia in 2006 cost 1.1 billion dollars.

Preparations for the Games, the biggest multi-sport event to be staged in India since the Asian Games in 1982, have been dogged by slow progress in the construction of stadiums and other infrastructure.

Nervousness around the Games is growing as deadlines slip repeatedly, particularly for the main Jawaharlal Nehru stadium and the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee swimming complex.

“The deadlines are being pushed further every time,” Mike Hooper, chief executive of the London-based Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), which owns and controls the Games, told AFP recently.

“In October last year we were told most of the venues will be ready by December, except the Jawaharlal Nehru and swimming stadiums which they said would be ready by March. Now that deadline has shifted to June.

“We struggle to understand that. If the venue construction programme does not adhere to what are self-imposed deadlines now, it will impact adversely the operational obligations.”

Issue of serving beef during CWG rocks Delhi Assembly

The issue of serving beef during Commonwealth Games today rocked Delhi Assembly with BJP MLAs protesting Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's remark calling them "communal-minded" for raising the matter, forcing an adjournment.

The issue was raised during 'discussion under special mention' by Leader of Opposition V K Malhotra who said Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta had made a statement that beef will be imported during the event to serve atheletes and officials.

Malhotra said Delhi Assembly had passed a legislation in 1994 under which storage and sale of beef is prohibited in the national capital.

Demanding a statement from Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit that beef would not be served during the event, he said it was obligatory on part of the government to ensure that the law is not violated.

"The Chief Secretary has told media that beef would be imported for the event. So many global sporting events like World Cup Hockey, International Shooting championship and IPL matches are taking place in Delhi where sportspersons from across the world are participating. But nobody has demanded that beef should be served. The law must be implemented in toto," he said.

As Dikshit did not respond to the repeated requests by Opposition for a statement on the issue, the BJP MLAs started shouting slogans against the government.

"If beef is served, we will not allow the Games to take place. Lakhs of people will come to the streets protesting against such move," senior MLA Jagdish Mukhi said.

When the House met after the usual brief break, Dikshit made a statement in the House saying that Mehta only said that this is an issue between Organising Committee of the event, the caterers and the MCD.

"The Chief Secretary has only made it clear that Delhi government has nothing to do with it. The MCD is supposed to give permission to the caterer and the Organising Committee will select the caterer," she said.

Unhappy over Dikshit's statement, Malhotra said it was a "very serious" issue and asked how could the Chief Minister "shy away from enforcement of the legislation passed unanimously by the Assembly".

To this, Dikshit insisted that this is an issue between Games organisers, MCD and caterer. "We have nothing to do with it. You are trying to make political capital out of it. Why don't you go to MCD? You are raising it because you are communal minded," she said.

Angry over Dikshit's remarks, BJP MLAs were soon on their feet shouting slogans demanding withdrawal of comments and trooped into the well of the House. Some of the Congress MLAs tried to counter their BJP counterparts.

As pandemonium continued, Speaker Yoganand Shastri adjourned the House for 15 minutes.

Delhi's citizens told to brush up on etiquette

India has compiled a list of do's and don'ts for its citizens at this year's Commonwealth Games to help showcase New Delhi's charms.

"We want to tell them don't urinate in public, don't spit, keep your houses and shops clean, keep public transport safe and such things," Delhi tourism chief Rina Ray told the Hindustan Times on Friday.

"This will tell every Delhiite that instead of being on the sidelines as a spectator, he or she can contribute to a better games."

New Delhi is preparing to host more than 100,000 foreign visitors during the October 3-14 event and the Indian capital hopes to use to games to show itself off as a truly global city.

"We don't want to start (the campaign) too early lest it fizzles out," Ray said.

The tips on good manners will be spread to through billboards, pamphlets, websites and audiovisual means in the coming months, Hindustan Times reported.

"We want to change Delhi's public culture, their behavior toward each other and to guests...so that they are courteous," Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said at the Delhi Tourism Conclave on Thursday, the paper reported.

"We want tourists to go back with the impression that Delhi is a sophisticated city."

Leave a lasting impression on Commonwealth Games guests: Sheila Dikshit

As New Delhi gears to host the Commonwealth Games (CWG), Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has asked citizens to put their best foot forward and leave a lasting impression on the guests.Addressing a tourism conclave here on Thursday, Dikshit said: “I can see a lot mannerisms changing, but it is still not enough. We have to do something which are extremely basic, like keeping our city clean, keeping our city attractive enough, giving our citizens the culture of politeness, sharing, caring for each other so when the world goes back with an impression that they have been to a truly civilized city.”

Dikshit also appealed to the private sector to share responsibility with the government in this regard.

“When the private sector appeals to people and when the private sector becomes the partner in this change, an active partner in this change, I think the change will come much much faster,” she said.

According to the CWG website, the Commonwealth village is being created at a cost of 230.7 million dollars (including the residential zone) and is spread over an area of 63.5 hectares (158.4 acres).

The village is also equipped with training areas for athletics (400 m eight-lane synthetic track and separate area for Throwing Events), swimming (50×25m, kids and leisure pool), weightlifting, wrestling and a fitness centre.

The village has 14 blocks, 34 towers and 1,168 air-conditioned flats to comfortably accommodate 8,000 athletes and team officials.

There will be a number of apartments, ranging from two to five bedroom units, each with ensuite facilities. There will be only two occupants per room, which makes it the highest ratio of facilities provided for any Games, as per officials of Organising Committee of the CWG-2010.

Terror threat dries up sponsors for Oz Delhi Commonwealth Games contingent

Australia's Commonwealth Games Association is struggling to attract sponsorships needed to send a large, competitive team to Delhi Commonwealth Games because many regular sponsors have backed out of the event fearing terrorist attacks.

The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Australian Commonwealth Games Association chief Perry Crosswhite as saying that only 35 per cent of the 7 million dollars needed for the games have been secured from corporate backers.

With six months remaining until the Games to begin, team officials should already have raised double that amount.

But the fear of a terrorist attack, either in the lead-up to the Games or during the 11 days of it, has dogged preparations for the event, the paper says.

"I'm really disappointed at the level of support from corporate Australia," Crosswhite said.

"We've always had good support in the past but they have obviously been influenced by what they have heard or read and are worried the Games are not going to go ahead or that they will be a disaster. They will go ahead," he added.

Major backers from previous years who have not signed up for Delhi include Telstra, Commonwealth Bank and Holden.

If ACGA fails to raise sufficient funds, it will be forced to dip into its foundation - a future fund established to invest the profits from the 2006 Melbourne Games.