Commonwealth Games OC takes over Talkatora stadium

Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee took over the first completed venue on Friday — the Talkatora indoor boxing stadium. With construction over, the Organising Committee will now focus on the remaining technical work at the venue.

Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the CWG OC, said that in the coming week, the OC would be taking over more venues, a process that would continue for another month. "All stadiums are ready and some small works are left at the Talkatora and Jawahar Lal Nehru stadia" he said.

Kalmadi added that all training areas were also complete but most individual sports committees had informed them that they would not need to use the facility for more than a couple of weeks. "It is only partially true that the training arenas were delayed where athletes could practise but we will make up for lost time," he said.

The Talkatora stadium is one of the city's greenest buildings, having been constructed with recycled building material, fly ash and heat reflective glass.
The boxing event is scheduled from October 5 to 13.

The stadium, with a capacity of 3,035, has been built at a cost of Rs 150 crore. It also boasts of a parking space for 500 cars. With the OC taking over, about 80 of its members and about 500 volunteers would be stationed here eventually.

The facility centre at the venue is equipped with a rainwater harvesting system and a dual knob flushing system. Around 200 CCTVs will secure the venue. During the Games, each floor of the centre would be used for different purposes. The ground floor for instance will have athlete cubicles, medical office warm-up area and athlete lounge. The first floor will have a doping-control office, federation office, technical official lounge, committee room, meeting room and changing rooms, among other facilities.

New Delhi hosts invitational archery event

The second day of the first invitational archery contest saw lively marksmanship by participants at the newly set up Yamuna Sports Complex in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The event is regarded as a yardstick to gauge India's preparedness for the Commonwealth Games.

The archery arena at Delhi's Yamuna Sports Complex was thrown open for the test archery competition, which began on March 8.

Over 100 archers from India as well as 10 other countries are taking part in this contest, organized by the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee (OC) in collaboration with the Archery Association of India (AAI).

Despite such an international event taking place, the authorities admitted that a major part of the construction work is yet to be completed.

The sports complex was initially scheduled to be ready by December 2009 but got delayed in the construction. Although few of the infrastructure facilities like change rooms and medical centre are not yet completed.

At present, however, only the grandstand, with the capacity of 1,500 spectators, is complete while some work remains on training and competition areas.

CWG OC working on dope control

The Organizing Committee (OC), Commonwealth Games, is carrying out doping control responsibilities under the overall supervision of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) at the ongoing World Cup tournament.

A 12-member team headed by Dr. Munish Chander, Director, Doping Control, Commonwealth Games, is handling sample collection at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium. The urine samples will be tested at the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) here.

Dr. Peter Weffers Bettink of the Netherlands, Chairman of the FIH Medical Committee, is the overall in-charge of the doping control. Dr. Bettink, it is learnt, determines the players to be tested on a day-to-day basis. Players are chosen at random.

The CWG anti-doping set-up has taken up the World Cup as a test event to fine-tune its arrangements. Earlier it had carried out the doping control at the Commonwealth shooting championships also. It is scheduled to take over the responsibility during the Commonwealth boxing championships here from March 10.

Hockey does not have a history of doping. Two Spanish woman players were cleared of doping charges before the Beijing Olympic Games after a qualifying tournament in Azerbaijan in April 2008.

An Indian player had tested positive in tests conducted at the Delhi laboratory prior to the departure of the team for the Olympics qualifying tournament in Madrid in 2004. The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) did not pursue the case. The Dope Control Centre (DCC), as NDTL used to be called then, was a non-accredited facility at that time. Strictly going by the rules, no sanctions could have been imposed by the FIH then.