Commonwealth Games, day one action
After months of speculations and doubts, the Commonwealth Games have started in India with an action packed opening day that produced some scintillating performances.
One of the major highlights of the day was the swimming competition, which made it evident, that the competition is going to be extremely tough.
On the very first day the defending champions and expected finalists exited early in the opening heats of the competition.
The Australians, who were harbouring big hopes in the pool had initial success as Emily Seebohm won eight medals by cruising through to the finals in the 50m butterfly and the 200m individual medley.
However, there were hardly any spectators present to enjoy her display at the Dr. SP Mukherjee Aquatic Complex.
But in the 200m medley both Alicia Coutts of Australia and Hannah Miley of Scotland were faster than Seebohm giving her an indication of the things to come and reiterating that life wont’ be easy in New Delhi.
In other events of the day England's Liam Tancock once again demonstrated as to why he was ranked amongst the top swimmers from the country. He had few problems in topping the time sheets ahead of Australian pair Daniel Arnamnart and Hayden Stoeckel in the
50m backstroke.
Tancock, who is a world record holder in this category, will be the real favourite for the final later on Monday.
On the other hand another force in the pool is Canada, there hopes of pool glory centre on Ryan Cochrane.
The 21-year-old looked at ease in her race as she gave an impressive performance in qualifying first for the 400m freestyle.
New Zealand's defending champion Moss Burmester, who is being regarded as one of the main contenders in her category, fell in the heats for the 200m butterfly title.
Similarly, Scotland's 200m freestyle holder Caitlin McClatchey, also had a forgettable time in her event as she finished 17th overall.
England's double Olympic champion, Rebecca Addlington, did make the final and then rushed to the Games Village in a hope of catching some rest before her next event.
When the competition enters its second stage the three traditional Commonwealth forces of Australia, England and Canada will be expected to claim the five gold medals available.
Meanwhile, journalists at the media centre of the Commonwealth Games were ecstatic with the dazzling show that they saw at the opening ceremony and their joy was doubled after weeks of unusually harsh criticism by the press, especially in the West.
Besides the local media men the foreign journalists and cameramen, who have converged at the venue, disproved all those negative notions.
They shared their views and after thoughts on the opening ceremony while interacting with their counterparts based at New Delhi on Monday.
One of the foreign journalists present at the opening ceremony was Solomon Ashons, a radio reporter from South Africa, who said that watching the ceremony, was one of the biggest moments of his life.
"It was a very spectacular opening ceremony. There was lights, there technology, there was dance, there was culture and for me, that is India...you know…And I think it was really really wonderful. I really liked the part where the little seven-year-old boy
Keshav, they call him, you know, just having a young boy like that being out there. And just having the whole drumming and also the 'Swagatam' (welcoming) part of it…you know…I really really loved that. And I think the opportunity was there for India to be
able to say -look we are able to do this and I think India really achieved that yesterday as a country", said Solomon Ashons.
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