Certain stadiums still require work
Certain stadiums still require work
On a rainy Sunday, the CWG Organising Committee chose to give its detractors in the media a guided tour of
several Games venues. To be fair, while most of the stadiums appeared largely unblemished, the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Swimming Complex failed to pass muster.
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The highboard event here, during the Federation Cup in July, had to be cancelled because the anti-slippery surface was not in place. Surprisingly, the situation remains unchanged. The anti-slippery surface has been brought from London after repeated requests to CPWD, the venue owners, and is expected to be in place within a day or two. Work is still on at the athletes lounge, the dope control centre, the gymnasium and the press conference room, which is being accommodated outside the main arena as there are not enough rooms inside.
Among other things, the electronic scoreboard, starting blocks (12) for the warm-up pool, will arrive from Singapore and will be in place by September 19. The Indian team is currently practising in the main pool.u00a0 Welding is also in progress in the spectators seating area.
The officials however remained in denial claiming everything was in order. "The venue is competition-ready to host the event in the next 48 hours and there is only some cleaning work left," said Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the Organising Committee.
The complex, which will be host to nearly 450 divers and swimmers from 42 countries, first came under the scanner in July when a tile came off few days before the swimming test event. The complex has been refurbished at a cost of Rs 377 crore. The pools had faced a lot of criticism during the test event in July because of some basic technical flaws in the designs. A F ufffdd ufffdration Internationale de Natation (FINA) technical delegation inspected the facilities last month and were reportedly satisfied.
"The delegation, however, did say there should have been a provision for lift without which there might be problems," said competition manager Kamlesh Nanavati.
| READY TO ROLL |
| The stadiums visited, besides the swimming complex, were Talkatora Indoor stadium (Boxing), Thyagaraj Sports Complex (Netball) and Siri Fort Sports Complex (Badminton and Squash) and they have all undergone considerable sprucing up in the last one month. Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi, who dropped in at Thyagaraj Complex to meet the media, said the venues are completely ready to host the competitions. |
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