My Commonwealth Games - Swimming

On October 8th I went to the heats of the swimming. Not so much excitement here, since no medals were at stake, but great to see it all the same. I watched the heats of the men's 1500m and the women's 200m.

It was a good venue, apart from the pigeons flying around inside the stadium. According to the local newspaper, they had been in eggs in nests when the roof was put on the stadium, and now they were trapped inside. The Indian CWG committee is trying frantically to remove birds from enclosed arenas, not to mention butterflies which fly in competitors' faces, as well as the infamous stray dogs and cobras in the Athletes' Village. They should have it all sorted out by 14th October.


Speaking of which, the Hindustan Times ran an article on the animal invasion at the Athletes' Village, showing a photograph of the boundary wall where the sand beneath it had subsided by as much as 60cm, allowing anyone and anything to 'slither through', as they put it. They then helpfully gave the precise location of the breach in the wall to all their readers, and directions to find it. If the athletes weren't feeling secure before, they should be feeling a lot less so now.


Security during the Games is a hit-and-miss affair. When I entered the swimming stadium I had a quick pat-down from a female security guard and that was it. When I had entered the gymnastics stadium the day before, I was patted down, my bag was xrayed, and a bunch of things were confiscated. It was hilarious. They confiscated my panty liners as a security threat! I took them out of the confiscation box, held them up to a female security officer and said 'these are for ladies - why are they banned?'. I was immediately allowed to keep them. I then grabbed my rechargable camera batteries from the same box and asked why they had been confiscated. I was told that they could be thrown at the athletes. I looked the security guard in the eye and told him that I could also throw my camera, including its internal batteries, and my bag, at the athletes but that I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. I was allowed to keep the batteries. They had also confiscated my tiny bottle of hand-sanitiser, which had been through airports from Iceland to Islamabad without a single query, but I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and let them keep it. I feel a lot safer now.


The swimming events ran slowly, with competitors time-and-time again having to stand down from the platforms while the crowd were told to be quiet. The swimmers would mount the platforms again, then the crowd would start screaming, all the time the announcer begged people in English and Hindi to be quiet for the start. Nobody listened. Nobody ever does.