The Commonwealth Games may have ended on a high but there was time for yet another scandal. And yes, the setting remained the same as it was just days ahead of the Games: the Village.
The difference this time was that the athletes of the country which was most critical about the arrangements, found themselves in a spot of bother.
The Games organising committee has said that a group of Australian athletes have vandalised a room in the village before the closing ceremony, throwing a washing machine off the eighth storey of the team’s residential tower block.
Australia’s Commonwealth Games chief Perry Crosswhite denied that an Australian athlete was involved in the incident. Crosswhite blamed athletes from other countries. Such things happen at the end of the Games. When everybody is finished, they are letting their hair down, they do all sorts of things. We just sort of manage it and get on with it,” Crosswhite said. Crosswhite added that an Australian team member had been sent home for bad behaviour before the vandalism took place.
A senior official at the Village downplayed the incident that reportedly happened following Australia’s loss to India in the cricket series, and said it was for the management of the team to take action against their own athletes responsible. The housekeeping staff at the Australian team tower also reported that the athletes sang insulting chants about the Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, who scored a double-century in the second Test.
Referring to the incident of the washing machine being thrown from the eighth floor, Lt Gen Ashok Kapur, the CWG Village in-charge, said it happened at around 4am on Wednesday and that the team management had already apologised for it. “It was not a major incident and the athletes were just having a fun time,” he said.
But Lalit Bhanot, the OC secretary general, said he has spoken to Crosswhite and Australia’s chef de mission for the CWG Steve Moneghetti, and they have agreed to pay for the damages done to the OC’s property. “Everything used during the period of the Games is a property of the organising committee. I have taken up the matter with concerned officials and they have agreed to pay for the damages,” Bhanot told DNA.
Paying for the damages is a general policy adopted and is also a clause mentioned in the official documents signed by the member nations who are using the facilities during the Games. “I remember an incident during the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when an Indian athlete by mistake scratched one of the cupboards of the Village. It was a minor incident and we had to pay for the damages. So if they have done it then they should pay for damages, whatever the amount,” OC treasurer Ashok Kumar Mattoo said.
Aus raise Rs4 lakh
Australian athletes, who dominated this Commonwealth Games, have raised Rs4 lakh for the poor and unprivileged children New Delhi. The money will be donated to two NGOs — Aastha and Katha — that work for the poor children in the national capital.
