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Malaysian Officials Still Unsatisfied With Games Village Conditions

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, Sept 25 (Bernama) -- Anxious Malaysian officials have yet to give the thumbs-up for conditions at the Games Village where the 2010 Commonwealth Games will be held.

"I am keeping my fingers crossed, lot of work has to be done (where Malaysians athletes will be staying). Plumbing, electricity supply and cleanliness need to be improved," Malaysia's Commonwealth Games general manager Jefri Ngadirin told Bernama on Saturday.

"We hope everything will be okay by Sept 28 when our athletes arrive. We are pushing them (organisers) to do it up, there is some progress," he said.

He said food and health issues did not pose a problem as the organisers duly took care of them.

A seven-member delegation, headed by Jefri, arrived in Delhi two nights ago to inspect the conditions of the venues and athletes residential zone, after Indian organisers fumbled in keeping up with their housekeeping deadline.

With only eight days to go, workers, mostly from neighbouring states, are toiling round-the-clock to fix the mess in the capital, that would be under scrutiny from global media in the coming days.

The events are slated from Oct 3 to 14 -- where nearly 7,000 athletes would arrive in Delhi to take part in the 19th edition of the games -- which India is hosting for the first time.

The 15-member lawn bowl team was the first batch of Malaysians athletes to arrive last night in Delhi, and had to stay in a hotel in the city as the rooms were not ready in the Games Village.

However, this afternoon they had moved to the athletes' village and began their first training.

Malaysia would be sending about 200 athletes to participate in 14 different sports, plus another 90 officials.

A gloomy Delhi has now changed to a more merriment host city as foreign teams started to troop in after initially refusing to participate -- forcing many to fear the games may collapse amid severe international criticism.

The monsoon, which lashed at north India for weeks, threatening to flood parts of the city and become a major cause for dengue outbreak in Delhi, has also receded. Another respite for the already under-pressure organisers.

The sporting events would be held under a canopy of tight security, with the Indian Government deploying thousands of heavily-armed paramilitary personnel and commandos to thwart any untoward incident.

-- BERNAMA

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