Competition hots up for beds

With the opening ceremony of the Fourth National Games behind them, one expected the athletes at the Koramangala Games Village to be headin...

With the opening ceremony of the Fourth National Games behind them, one expected the athletes at the Koramangala Games Village to be heading towards their respective venues, but what one found this morning was that their focus hasn’t shifted yet to competition. The reason: their residences are not yet fixed. Leaving their baggage in one corner and spending sleepless nights in another, the competitors are still an unsettled lot.

Â Â As the village woke up this morning, weightlifters, basketballers, shooters, fencers and canoeists were leaving for their respective venues after entrusting their belongings with colleagues. Others were busy hunting for better accommodation and facilities.

Â Â Hundreds of inmates were seen unloading their baggage from buses, a sight which one normally catches when the Games Village is just inaugurated and thrown open for athletes to come in. But here, they were actually shifting from one building to another. And, some were even hopping from one floor to another in the same building as the maintenance staff at the Village began providing fans and regulating water supply etc.

Â Â That the reception staff at the entrance to the Village were ignorant of this constant shifting process was known when they informed the visiting reporters that the Kerala contingent was in Yamuna Apartments when they had already moved into Sharavati.

Â Â Considering this state of constant flux, one doubts if anybody would be able to furnish precise details of the teams’ stay until the heat of the competition shifts the focus from Village to the stadia. Morever, what seems to have become a more thorny issue is lack of practice facilities at the village. The respective contingent officials were running from pillar to post to procure practice facilities for their players. But only few have been fortunate like the AP basketball team, who, after two futile visits to the main stadium, stumbled upon the military courts for one practice session.

The other lucky ones were the Services teams who have access to facilities at various army institutions in the city. For instance, in the absence of weighing machines at the Village, only Services’ boxers could go to the MEG Centre to monitor their body weight which is so very important, more so when only two days are left before the event begins. As for the rest, they are still groping in the dark.