Commonwealth Games, half-way point

The good news for India is that the commonwealth games didn't end up the disaster that many feared they would.

On the other hand, a lot has gone wrong.

On Day 5 of the competitions, India is way ahead of what they expected in the medal count. Of course, some athletes chose to stay home when the pictures of the deplorable rooms in the athletes village were aired. And Australia and England lost most of their swim teams to "Delhi Belly". (The pool water was tested, and came up clean - but that only leaves food, drinking water, bathing water, and a billion other things that could have caused it.) The toilets all backing up at the swimming venue was just another little glitch.

A 25 foot high electronic scoreboard crashed to the ground at the Rugby stadium. Luckily they have until Monday to fix it, so something will be up - what is anybody's guess.

Plumbing problems have plagued the athletes village. Thousands of condoms blocked the drainage. Apparently the athletes quarters are not THAT bad.

The grounds crew is scrambling to patch cracks discovered in the running tracks. You know, the ones built just for these games.

There was a mess-up after the woman's 100 meter race. The athlete that finished first was announced the winner, even though a team had lodged an official complaint, and she was eventually disqualified for false starting. News finally reached her just a few minutes before the medal presentation. Apparently the official communications work as well as the plumbing.

Wild dogs and monkeys have created a nuisance, running wild around and menacing athletes and spectators alike. Monkeys may look cute, but a 50 lb animal with 3 inch teeth is an imposing force - especially when he wants your ice cream.

Oh, and a King Cobra was found in the South African sleeping quarters. Must be like a door prize or something.

Perhaps the strangest thing is the stadiums appear to be empty. I mean, other than the athletes and the officials, NOBODY is in the stands. Nobody. Supposedly 900,000 tickets were sold. If that is the case, they must all have gotten lost on the way to the stadium. I have seen more people at U14 girls soccer games. But we didn't have monkeys and wild dogs.

And now I will gripe about the television coverage, because it's my blog and I want to. when I watch Olympics coverage in the US, they show the top teams - US or not. They may show a few minutes of Americans getting their butts kicked, but whether the US medals is not a factor in what events are shown. Yes, there are some events I am only mildly interested in (Ice Dancing? Really?), but there is enough "unusual" sports (curling, for example) that two weeks of prime time goes by pretty quickly.

Here, in India, though, it is All India, All The Time. I have seen exactly one event that India was not competing in (Lawn Bowling - that deserves it's own blog entry, if I can ever understand the rules). Every other sport has shown India victorious. Yet when I look at the actual medal count, India is 2nd in Gold medals (20, less than half Australia's 47), and 3rd in total medals (47, behind Australia's 98 and England's 70). So what gives?

I think it is another example of India's "Chalta Hai" attitude - rather than show people the best that each sport has to offer, let's make it about patriotism. Show only India victories. Anything else might make the people sad, and we don't want that.

India has a lot to be proud of, considering where these games were just a month or so ago. And they have a lot to be upset about. To quote the AP "Previous problems in the leadup to the games included construction delays, corruption allegations, concerns about security, outbreaks of dengue fever and, perhaps the most damaging, complaints about unfinished and filthy accommodations in the athletes' village just days before teams were due to arrive."

There is light at the end of the tunnel. And hopefully it is not an oncoming train.