South Africa determined to dominate the Games at Delhi
As athletes and swimmers from 71 participating nations have started arriving at the Indian capital for the mega event which will be taking place from the 4th to the 13th of October. Team South Africa have adopted the strategy of dominating
over athletes in all the games, including swimming.
The president of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, Gideon Sam said that the athletes who will be heading towards the Indian capital for the Commonwealth Games are determined to do their best at all the events especially swimming.
He also mentioned that participants in the other athletics will also perform in their best form and shape.
At the most recent sports event in Singapore, the Youth Olympics, all the medals that were won by the South African participants were in swimming or other athletics. Keeping view of these achievement, Sam said that Team South Africa had realized that its
strength lies in the sport of swimming and they are working in this particular direction.
The swim team of the South African squad, that will be in New Delhi for the Commonwealth Games includes the 100 metre breaststroke champion Cameron Van der Burgh, the champion of the Paralympics Swimming events, Natalie du Toit and the Olympic champion Roland
Schoeman.
As part of the preparations for the Commonwealth Games, South Africa provided the contenders with better facilities of warm up as well as other swimming pools. The swimming federation also uplifted the qualification criteria and the best of the best swimmers
were filtered for Team South Africa. As a result a couple of athletes were disappointed when they were not selected for the Games.
South Africa landed on the fifth spot when the last Commonwealth Games concluded in Melbourne in 2006. SASCOC’s new policy of concentrating on swimming will hopefully push the team’s position upwards from the fifth spot, at least that is what Sam is expecting.
Around 550 athletes from countries including Australia, Canada and England will be arriving at New Delhi on Monday, the 27th of September. South Africa has the largest squad that will be reaching New Delhi for the Commonwealth Games. 113 athletes
and officials will be representing South Africa.
As for Team Australia’s swimmers, the threat of one of the Australian swimmers pulling out of the Games still persists. The leading coach of the team, Stephan Widmer told the correspondents in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, that keeping in view that
the security situation in the country is very sensitive, there is a serious threat that athletes of the team might withdraw from the crisis hot event.
Stephan revealed that the main problem is that if one of the swimmer quits the Games, this would lead up to a couple of athletes following in the footsteps. He also said that the general perception of security concerns has seen to change amongst most of
the athletes but none of the participants are hundred percent satisfied with the arrangements made at the venues and the Games Village in New Delhi.
As far as the Games Village is concerned, despite some progress made by the Organizing Committee, Team Scotland is still not satisfied with how thing are working at the Village. The head of Team Jon Doig still went on to criticise the Organizing Committee
for not coming up to their expectations regarding the progress that was to be made at the Residential Zone of the Village.
As the organizing Committee is still working on the hygiene and safety management of the Games Village, the 80 members of Team Scotland are not very satisfied with the way things are changing. He did admit that there has been some work done, but then again
he agreed with the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, Fennell Mike on the fact that there was a tremendous amount of progress to be made at the Games venues and other buildings that will be used for the Commonwealth Games.
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