Aussies in charge and Delhi battles to save reputation

Australia tightened their Commonwealth Games gold medal grip Wednesday as embattled Delhi organisers scrambled desperately to salvage the crisis-hit, publically-shunned event’s crumbling reputation.

On a bumper day when 27 gold medals were won, Australia claimed 12 with the country’s swimmers responsible for five while their cyclists pedalled to three.

Hosts India, desperate for their competitors to put a gloss over the Games’ setbacks, were hanging onto the tails of Australia by winning three shooting golds, two weightlifting as well as a victory in wrestling.

But it was the sight of an eerily-empty 60,000 Jawaharlal Nehru stadium that gave organisers yet another headache as the track and field programme got underway.

Even that had been in danger of not starting on schedule.

Over 1,000 workers had to toil through the night to fix the running track and in-field areas at the stadium that were damaged during Sunday’s spectacular opening ceremony.

“There was some damage to the athletics track and the in-field was in a very poor condition, and there was some general cleaning up to be done,” admitted Commonwealth Games Federation chief Mike Fennell.

It was the latest worrying development at the 11-day event which has been plagued by allegations of corruption, fears over security and health as well as technical hiccups at venues and at the sprawling international media centre.

When action got underway, only a few thousand spectators turned up at the Jawaharlal Nehru arena to watch the 100m heats which were missing Jamaican sprint kings Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell.

Uganda’s Moses Kipsiro won the men’s 5000m, holding off a last-lap charge from former Kenyan world champion Eliud Kipchoge. Another Kenyan, Mark Kiptoo, took the bronze. “I wanted this badly, badly, badly and God has given me the gift,” said Kipsiro.

In the men’s 100m heats, no-one managed to dip below the magical 10 seconds mark, with Jamaica’s Oshane Bailey leading the way into Thursday’s semi-finals in 10.12sec.

In the women’s 100m heats, Natasha Mayers of St Vincent and the Grenadines was the fastest into the semi-finals in 11.33.

Australia shrugged off the mounting problems to dominate in the pool where they have now clinched 10 gold and 27 in total with England their closest challengers on three gold in an overall haul of 12.

Alicia Coutts showed her blistering form by winning the 100m freestyle to add to her 200m individual medley title.

Leisel Jones won a third successive 200m breaststroke with Sarah Katsoulis and Tessa Wallace completing an Australian 1-2-3. Australia also collected the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay and men’s 4x200 free while highly-rated teenager Emily Seebohm grabbed the 100m backstroke.

South Africa’s Cameron Van Der Burgh halted the Australian juggernaut with victory in the men’s 100m breaststroke while Jason Dunford won the men’s 50m butterfly final giving Kenya an unexpected first win in the pool.

World champion Cameron Meyer wrapped up the 40km points race as Australia’s track cycling gold haul leapt to six.

The Australians have now won every gold going at the Indira Gandhi velodrome apart from the men’s keiren, where Malaysian Josiah Ng clinched a final marred by the disqualification of teammate Azizulhasni Awang.

Megan Dunn edged the women’s 25km points race while the Aussies underlined their dominance with an easy women’s team sprint.

But India were making their mark by staying second in the medals table.

Ravi Kumar Katulu and Renu Bala were in record-breaking form in a double weightlifting gold triumph. NEW DELHI, Thursday, AFP