The Queen’s Baton arrives in India on Friday with only a 100 days to go for the Commonwealth Games to get under way in the capital on October 3. The days might be winding down but the Central Organising Committee’s biggest concern right now is venue completion.
Commonwealth Games Federation president Mike Fennell, who is in India to attend the arrival of the Queen’s Baton, will survey all the venues as well as the athlete’s village to assess the progress of preparations.
“We are going to assess progress at every venue on Saturday. The deadlines are getting pushed back all the time, but one date is not changing — October 3,” CWG chief executive officer Mike Hooper told this newspaper on Friday.
“Some of the Games venues have been inaugurated and test events have already been held, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. A lot of work is still remaining specifically in regard to landscaping and finishing,” he added.
The June 30 deadline for completion of the venues looms large. However, the debris around unfinished stadiums, roads that have been dug-up and on-going Metro construction presents largely a chaotic picture. The organisers have the added headache of the fast-approaching monsoon.
“Most of the exterior work is still pending at the venues. We can expect further delays during the monsoon season.
“Until the venues are handed over to the COC we can’t go ahead with our technical and spectator overlays. We also need time to test our overlay plans,” the Games CEO said.
The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which hosts the opening and closing ceremonies and the track and field events, the S.P. Mukherjee swimming complex and the cycle velodrome, are causing the most concern.
Australian swimming head coach Leigh Nugent had come down to Delhi with other sports officials last week to check on the Games preparations. Nugent felt that the Games village although ‘fantastic’ still resembled a building site. He also pointed out that although progress was encouraging, a lot of work still needed to be done.
Hooper felt it was not fair to compare the preparations at the 2006 Melbourne Games and in Delhi. “MCG witnessed a $424 million makeover for the Games in 2006, but we were handed over the venue till January for the event in March. They had a lot of infrastucture like the indoor venues already prepared, so it would be like comparing a peach to an apple,” he said.
However, the CWG CEO made it abundantly clear that the delays were simply not acceptable. “We have never witnessed deadlines being changed so many times anywhere else, this is absolutely not common.