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Largest Commonwealth Games Begins on Thursday,
July 25 LONDON: On Thursday evening a Commonwealth athlete - whose identity is being kept secret - will carry a relay baton into the brand new City of Manchester Stadium and hand it to the Queen, who will open it and read the message she put into it on March 11, when the baton began its 60,000 mile journey through 23 Commonwealth countries. Her Majesty will then declare open the XVII Commonwealth Games. About 5,000 competitors and officials from 72 countries (making up the Commonwealth's 54 nations) have gathered in Manchester to compete in 14 individual and three team sports. That makes the event the largest Commonwealth Games ever, offering a million spectator tickets, three times as many as at any previous Games - and most of the tickets have already been sold. For Manchester, hosting the games is a cherished opportunity, after failing in its bids for both the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. It is also a stimulus for massive regeneration of a city that has suffered due to the demise of the industrial base on which it thrived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus the eastern part of the city, once the centre for textile and engineering businesses, has been converted from a derelict urban desert into a modern "Sports City", with the new 110-million-pound stadium at its heart - the venue for athletics, Rugby sevens and the opening and closing ceremonies. It also embraces the Velodrome, reckoned to be the finest cycling stadium in Europe, an indoor tennis centre, the National Squash Centre, an indoor multi-sports hall and indoor and outdoor athletics tracks. It is intended that after the Games Sport City will become a centre of sporting excellence, run on a nation-wide basis. The stadium, which will accommodate 38,000 for the Games, will be converted into a 48,000-capacity home for Manchester City Football Club. This will avoid the experience of Sydney, where the magnificent Olympic Stadium has been unable to command sufficient use to make it commercially viable. Sport City is just two miles from the centre of Manchester, where other venues for events are located. Only one of the 15 venues is not located in the Manchester area - the National Shooting Centre at Bisley, 30 miles south of London, where the rifle shooting events will be held. The Games, therefore, will be a Manchester event, though a large proportion of the tickets already sold have been bought by people in other parts of the UK and abroad. The enthusiasm it has generated among the people of Manchester can be judged by the fact that the work force of 12,000 that will run the Games includes no fewer than 10,000 volunteers. They were chosen from 23,000 applications received by the Games organisers within three weeks of advertising. Linked with the Games is a multicultural festival, which will last five months, the aim of which is to attract families to the city long after the closing ceremony on August 4. Local schools have been encouraged to organise events reflecting the culture of the competing countries. The Games are estimated to cost about 300 million pounds. Of that 165 million was provided by Sport England, a body which oversees the disposal of funds from the National Lottery for sporting purposes. A further 80 million was given by Manchester's local government and 40 million by the national government. The local contribution is justified by the fact the Games are estimated to generate 600 million pounds of investment and 5,000 new jobs. The motivation for the national government's contribution is the desire to prove that Britain can stage large events of this nature. The balance of the required revenue will come from ticket sales and fees paid by roadcasters. The BBC will be the host broadcaster and its output will be fed to a billion viewers world-wide. The total media force at the Games will number about 4,000. -ANI |
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