Small crowds, minor glitches and the prospect of contracting dengue fever were still a concern for organizers yesterday as the spotlight finally turned to sports at the Commonwealth Games.
Swimming was the first sport to get going in New Delhi, the morning after the games officially opened with a spectacular ceremony at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
India had another minor setback when the first gold medal of the games was won by Nigerian weightlifter Augustina Nwaokolo in the women’s 48kg category. Sonia Chanu, who had been expected to win the host country’s first gold medal, finished second and Indian teammate Sandhya Rani Devi Atom took bronze.
Photo: AFP
However, health issues, one of the main concerns in the buildup to the Games, came to fore at the weekend when 30-year-old Indian lawn bowls team official Ruptu Gogoi was admitted to hospital with dengue fever.
However, English freestyle swimmer Steven Beckerleg said he wasn’t that concerned about getting the disease.
“We’ve been seeing them spraying frequently and the fact that one person has acquired it really doesn’t worry me,” Beckerleg said.
Photo: AFP
Others also seemed to be unaffected by the news.
“We’ve got supplies of repellents,” the New Zealand team said in a statement. “So far we haven’t seen too many mosquitoes, but we’re continuing to apply regularly.”
Organizers have been regularly spraying pesticides at high-risk areas, including at the athletes’ village and at the swimming venue, where stagnant water provides a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
“This is the peak season,” said R.N. Singh, the chief medical officer of New Delhi Municipal Corp. “Our teams have fanned out searching for breeding places in every nook and corner of New Delhi and spraying anti-larval medicines.”
McKay Savage, a 34-year-old Canadian who works for a charity organization in London, said at the tennis venue that he had heard about the dengue fever outbreak before traveling to India for the Games.
“I was not super worried. I had noticed there were problems caused by the rains, but that didn’t stop me from coming,” said Savage, who had previously worked in India for three years. “It was an opportunity to watch something interesting and these things don’t bother me too much.”
Dengue fever, a painful, viral disease that can be life-threatening, has become an issue in the Indian capital this year because of the extended monsoon season. About 3,500 cases of dengue fever have been reported in New Delhi and seven of the afflicted have died, the Press Trust of India reported.
In the pool, Australia started to dominate right from the start, winning three of the first five swimming gold medals awarded.
Kylie Palmer won the 200m freestyle in 1 minute, 57.50 seconds, with Jazmin Carlin of Wales earning silver and dual Olympic gold medalist Rebecca Adlington of England the bronze.
Alicia Coutts later won the 200m individual medley in 2 minutes, 9.70 seconds. Australian teammate Emily Seebohm, who can still win seven gold medals in New Delhi, was second and Julia Wilkinson of Canada was third.
Australia’s men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team claimed the final gold medal of the night in 3 minutes, 13.92 seconds.
Also, Ryan Cochrane of Canada won the men’s 400m freestyle and Chad Le Clos of South Africa took the men’s 200m butterfly.
Although the swim stadium had a good size crowd for the evening session, many of the venues were struggling to bring people in.
At the 19,118-seat field hockey stadium, only about 100 spectators turned up to watch New Zealand beat Wales 5-1 in the opening match of a tournament featuring India’s second-favorite sport.
Rohan Bopanna’s match to open the tennis competition drew only dozens of fans at the 5,015-seat venue.
In netball, Australia beat Samoa 76-39 in front of only 58 spectators.
“Netball is not that huge in India, so I can’t imagine the crowd improving much, but we don’t care,” Australia shooter Cath Cox said. “If we win a gold medal in front of a man and a dog, that’s fine with me.”
Last week, the government said only 200,000 of the 1.7 million tickets for the Games had been sold.
Glitches were also reported at some venues. The boxing weigh-in scales were giving faulty readings, causing several athletes to panic because they were said to be too heavy, but after testing the scales, the organizers decided to reschedule to weigh-in to this morning, the day the boxing competition opens.
In the morning session at the swimming pool, Seebohm was briefly listed as disqualified in the heats of the 200m individual medley, before organizers said it was a mistake.
Just getting to the first day of competition has proven to be difficult for organizers, who had to deal with construction delays, allegations of corruption and security worries in only the second Commonwealth Games to be staged in Asia.
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