Team Scotland boss Jon Doig has criticised the Delhi Commonwealth Games organisers, saying the athletes have been let down by them as the Village is not upto the mark and there are things yet to be fixed.
About 80 members of the Scottish team and 50 of the Wales contingent have moved into the Village even as organisers sprint against time to finish up the cleaning up of the residential complex.
Mr. Doig said although things are changing but it was still “just not good enough for people who have had seven years to prepare“.
“We have been working really hard on our accommodation and the big challenge is to ensure that the rest of the accommodation is the same level for the other 71 Commonwealth Games associations.
“We just happened to arrive early, identify the problems and started working very hard to try to address them.
“Now we’ve got people in it’s really starting to test the system and there are a few things that need to be fixed on an ongoing basis,” Chef de mission of the Scotland Team, Mr. Doig was quoted as saying by the BBC . Mr. Doig said since his colleagues arrived here in the middle of September, “quite a lot of change” happened but it is still not good enough.
“We’ve had a number of our colleagues move in over the last couple of days and have found that their apartments are a long way from being ready for our athletes.
“A lot of them have arrived in Delhi and have had to be held in hotels until they can be brought up to standard.
“It’s just not good enough for people who have had seven years to prepare for the Games,” he said.
Members of Scotland team who arrived in Delhi include archery, lawn bowls, shooting, tennis and weightlifting teams, even as tennis star Elena Baltacha decided to pull out citing health hazards yesterday.
Their rugby players, boxers and wrestlers are due to head out on Tuesday.
Many Commonwealth countries criticised the preparations of the Games, which have been plagued by construction delays, corruption charges, a shooting incident, a foot over—bridge collapse and a dengue outbreak.
These nations have also criticised the Village, terming it as “filthy and unliveable”, which prompted a massive cleaning drive at the residential complex by the organisers.
Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit yesterday said that it would not be finished by Wednesday.
