so hard to plan transport for official? they need 4 hours? what kind of organiser?
Judges' strike threatens athletics as Delhi chaos deepens
Technical judges for the athletics competition at the Jarwaharial Nehru Stadium have threatened to down tools and walk out, wrecking the centrepiece of the troubled Commonwealth Games, unless there is an improvement in the shambolic transport arrangements provided by organisers.
Officials were kept waiting for buses to take them to their hotels for four hours on the opening night of the athletics programme on Wednesday, with many not getting to bed until 2am before having to return to the stadium six hours later.
The organising committee has been put on notice that any repeat will lead to a strike by the hundreds of judges and technical staff needed to run the athletics competition.
Advertisement: Story continues below An immediate walk-out was only avoided after the beleaguered chairman of the organising committee, Suresh Kalmadi, gave his assurance that the situation would improve.
The angry mood among officials was communicated to him at a meeting on Thursday with Keith Davies, the British technical director of the International Association of Athletics Federations, and Bill Bailey, an Australian IAAF Council member and technical delegate to the Delhi Games.
The strike threat is the latest crisis to engulf the athletics competition after emergency repairs were required to the surface of the running track when it was damaged by Sunday's opening ceremony.
Work was still being carried out just hours before the opening race on Wednesday, raising concerns about whether the rubber compound surface would be fully bonded in time for the competition.
Further doubts have been raised about the quality of the runway for the long jump and triple jump competitions, which appears to be bumpy and undulating.
The sparse crowds inside the 60,000-seat stadium - there were around 10,000 spectators on Thursday but perhaps half that the day before - have also created a funereal atmosphere compared to the full houses that were the norm in Melbourne four years ago and in Manchester in 2002.
Meanwhile, there was more chaos when a giant electronic scoreboard came crashing down at the rugby sevens venue at Delhi University.
Fortunately, no one was injured. The collapse was blamed on the failure of a chain support at one corner of the scoreboard.
"Luckily, it happened when no spectators were around," said venue manager Kevin Culliver.
More seriously, the fortress-like security at the Games claimed its first victims when a high-tech device that was meant to prevent attacks on the athletes' village seriously injured three senior officials of the Ugandan team.
A car carrying the officials was entering the village late on Tuesday night when a tyre killer - a sharp-edged barrier that stays below the ground when authorized vehicles are being let in - rose suddenly and hit the vehicle.
The car braked sharply and hit a barrier, injuring chef de mission William Tumwine, an administrative officer and the team's press attache.
Tumwine and the administrator were rushed to hospital for emergency eye surgery.
Many of the Games delegations have voiced fears about a possible security mistake with thousands of soldiers routinely aiming loaded guns directly at officials, athletes and workers moving around the venues.
The Games technology is also in meltdown, with leading wire agencies Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters making an official complaint about the late arrival of results, which has caused disruption to broadcasters and newspapers trying to report on the Games.
The technological problems have also hit the general public.
After responding to nationalistic calls from organisers to buy tickets and support Indian athletes, they found the ticket booths were unable to print their tickets. Many were turned away disappointed.
Earlier in the week the boxing weigh-in was deferred after the scales were found to be defective. The problem was only discovered after some teams had sent their athletes into the sauna and for runs in the midday heat to lose weight.
More than 2,000 athlete and official accreditations were also cancelled after Delhi Police raided the organising committee headquarters and discovered they had not been subject to a rigorous security check.
Those with invalid accreditations are now subject to even more rigorous security checks and intensive questioning before being admitted to venues.
