By IANS,
New Delhi: Enjoying the ‘excellent food’ and ‘comfortable stay’ at the Commonwealth Games Village, athletes and officials Wednesday spoke here in superlatives to describe the facilities at various venues for the Oct 3-14 Games.
‘World class’, ‘amazing’, ‘excellent’, said the athletes and officials as focus shifted on the athletes, their training and preparedness for the Games, after rubbishing for weeks the Village ‘unclean’, ‘unhygienic’ and ‘unlivable.’ A highly satisfied Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit announced that all the towers at the Village are clean and ready to occupy.
Teams from most of the 71 countries staying at the Village and training at various facilities also praised the security measures in place, though some of them said they had never seen such elaborate arrangement.
Union Sports Minister M. S. Gill and the much-criticised head of the Organizing Committee (OC) Suresh Kalmadi were at the Village for around two hours, not pointing fingers at each other, but sporting a ‘didn’t-I-say-so look’ as athletes and chef-de-mission after chef-de-mission sang paeans about the accommodation, facilities and venues.
The athletes and officials streamed into the Village and more than 1,000 checked in Wednesday, taking the number to around 4,000 of the expected 7,000.
Even as the Australian chef-de-mission Steve Moneghetti kept telling everyone how impressed the members of his contingent were with the facilities, his government dampened their spirits by putting a spoke in the wheel by issuing a fresh travel advisory for its nationals, asking them to avoid parts of the country and the Indian capital.
However, Home Minister P. Chidambaram maintained that ‘foolproof security will be provided for the event.
After the visit, Gill said: “I have spent almost two hours in the village and spoken to teams from at least 13 countries. Honestly, all of them said that they are feeling very comfortable and are glad to be here.”
“I am personally satisfied with the arrangements and situation at the Village and venues,” he told reporters.
“There is nothing to worry about,” he said referring to the Australian advisory, pointing out that stringent security measures were in place.
Dikshit was at the Village with Union Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, to see the cleaning of the complex was complete hours ahead of the deadline for the work was to end.
“The Village is now absolutely ready for occupation,” she said.
“The work at the Village is complete. All the lifts are functional,” Dikshit said, adding that the problem of waterlogging has also been addressed.