Delhi Commonwealth Games

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A light installation depicts Hindu Yogic posture at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium during the opening ceremony for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi October 3, 2010.


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The 19th Commonwealth Games were declared open on Sunday in a spectacular opening ceremony that should help repair the damage to India's image caused by a calamitous build-up to the sporting festival.
The preparations for the $6 billion (3 billion pounds) "friendly games" have been marred by a series of setbacks to India's ambition of showing off its soft power by hosting its biggest sporting event for nearly three decades.
Organisers are hoping to put all that behind them over the next 11 days of sporting competition between mostly former British colonies but there were still boos on Sunday from the crowd for chief Games organiser Suresh Kalmadi.
Britain's Prince Charles, who was greeted with chants of "India! India!," read out a message from his mother Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Commonwealth, and India's President Pratibha Patil was also given a prominent role.
"I am delighted to declare the Games open," said the Prince after delivering the message which had travelled in the Queen's Baton relay from London on a 190,000 kms journey through the 71 nations and territories of the Commonwealth.
President Patil then gave her own address, concluding to huge cheers from the 60,000 crowd in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium by saying: "The Commonwealth Games now really are open, let the Games begin!"
Those cheers were a stark contrast to the jeers that greeted Kalmadi when he gave his speech but in keeping with a festive and friendly atmosphere in the stadium, illustrated when the Pakistan team were given a rousing reception despite the tense relations between the neighbours.
The huge security operation around the stadium and city involving some 100,000 police and military personnel was a reminder of the safety concerns that kept some athletes away from the Games.
Corruption charges, an attack by suspected militants that wounded two tourists, a dengue fever epidemic, a filthy athletes' village and the collapse of a footbridge also contributed to a rash of negative publicity around the Games.
Some 4,700 athletes are expected to take part in events in 17 sporting disciplines and compete for 272 gold medals before the Games close on October 14

Watched it on TV, Great start for the games...

shame charlie boy put the torch in back to front..

maybe some of the money being spent on this could have been spent on providing homes for the slum dwellers of india x

no chance thistle it is all in the pockets of indias wealth elite by now. anyway they threw the poor buggers out of their shacks to make way fotr the stadia and swimming pool etc.
The next Commenwealth games in Glasgow are already in trouble for forcing an old dear out of her home and only giving her 30 grand for it. While multimillions of pounds have been made by some of the UK elite.
one paide 8 million and his buddie have bought ot of hom for twenty million.

i see on five news people arent turning up to watch the events and 10,000 security people have disappeared taking the uniforms they were given with them xx

Watson and Ogier through in Delhi

It was an interesting first morning for the Channel Islands in Delhi at the Commonwealth Games.

And one of the biggest performances came in the mixed doubles in Tennis. Heather Watson and Patrick Ogier won their first round match against a pair from the Bahamas in three sets.

It was also an early start for the swimmers. Guernsey's Ian Powell, Tom Hollingsworth, Alexendar Beaton, and Ben Lowndes were all in the pool. Unfortunately none of them made it through their heats, but the 4 by 100 freestyle team, who were very impressive at the Island Games in Aland, did their best and finished fourth in their heat, but still not good enough for a place in the final.

Jersey Archer Lucy O'Sullivan, who's been battling illness, put in a decent performance in archery scoring 683 points in the individual compound. She'll be competing in the last 16 tomorrow (Tuesday).

Squash got underway too with some notable wins for the Channel Islands. Guernsey's Chris Simpson and Jennie Cowie both won their matches.

And islanders were competing in other sports too including, Table Tennis and Bowls.

The islands made their entrance in front of thousands of people in a packed stadium on Sunday.

Shooter Peter Jory lead the Guernsey team as the flag bearer. Karina Bisson did the honours for Jersey.


From Channel TV.



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Guernsey tennis star Heather Watson beat Indian number two Poojashree Venkatesha 7-6 6-3 in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

She will go on to face the number one seed in the women's singles, Australia's Anastasia Rodionova, who is number 62 in the world.

But Watson and partner Patrick Ogier were knocked out of the doubles.

Kylie Robilliard set a new personal best time of 12.2 seconds in the women's 100m, but failed to progress.

Guernsey's top distance runner Lee Merrien was outclassed in the 5,000m, which was won by Uganda's Moses Kipsiro.

Merrien stayed in contention for half the race but faded when the African runners increased the pace and he finished well down the field in 15th position.

He told the BBC it had been a very stop start race to begin with and the hot conditions had affected him more than he had expected.



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Lucy Beere and partner Gwen de la Mare lost out to Wales on day three
Day Three Results - Wednesday, 6 October

Aquatics - Swimming
100m freestyle heats - Ian Hubert missed out on a place in the semi finals, despite finishing 3rd in heat three in 53.83 seconds

4x200m freestyle heats - Guernsey finished fourth behind Canada, Malaysia and Singapore in heat one

Athletics
Women's 100m round one - Kylie Robilliard ran a personal best of 12.2 seconds, but did not qualify for the semi finals

Men's 5,000m final - Lee Merrien finished 15th

Bowls
Men's pairs - Don Batiste and Ian Merrien lost 2-0 to Jersey and to India on the tie-break

Men's triples - Guernsey beat Jersey 5-1 on the tie-break and had a straight 2-0 victory over Northern Ireland

Women's pairs - Lucy Beere andGwen de la Mare lost 5-7 7-9 to Anwen Butten and Hannah Smith (Wales)

Table Tennis
Men's team event - Guernsey lost out on a quarter final place to Sri Lanka 1-3

Tennis
Mixed doubles quarter-final - Heather Watson and Patrick Ogier lost to Sarah Borwell and Ken Skupski (England) 6-0 6-1

Women's singles round two - Heather Watson beat Indian number two Poojashree Venkatesha 7-6 6-3

Heather Watson went out in the quarter-finals of the Commonwealth Games tennis tournament to number one seed and world number 62 Anastasia Rodionova.
Watson faced an uphill struggle as she faced a challenging opponent while fighting illness and succumbed to the Australian 6-0 6-2.
The last-eight finish was the best ever Commonwealth Games performance from a Guernsey tennis player.
Watson is just one of a number of athletes who has fallen ill.
Rodionova was the second-highest ranked player Watson has played, she beat world number 48 Aleksandra Wozniak 6-3 6-2 in the first round at Eastbourne's Aegon International tournament in June.
That was Watson's first WTA main draw win. The 18-year-old, ranked 202 in the world, has beaten two other top 100 players, Sabine Lisicki in September and Tsvetana Pironkova in June.
Tom Druce qualified for the semi-finals of the 400m at the Commonwealth Games this morning but he had to phone home to discover his fate as he struggled to find out the results at the games in Delhi.

Powell reached the semi-finals of the 100m butterfly

Druce finished as the sixth of the nine 'fastest losers' having run a time of 47.4 seconds.
Hywel Robinson was also in the qualifiers for the 400m, but finished fifth in his heat and outside the time needed to go to the semis.
Swimming team manager Sara Parfitt told BBC Guernsey the swimmers have been having a great games despite reports of 'Delhi Belly' from some of the participants in the pool.
The squad has been setting personal bests, including Ben Lowndes and Ian Hubert with 59.41 and 59.61 seconds respectively in the 100m butterfly heats.


In the same event Ian Powell qualified for the semi-finals, but came in fifth in the fastest heat of the day in a time of 55.24 seconds, 0.2 seconds slower than his time in the heat.
Table tennis team manager Derek Webb said he was delighted at the way the women's team played, but he was even more impressed by the performance of the men's trio.
Garry Dodd, Olly Langlois and Matt Stubbington beat Malawi and Uganda, which means they will finish in at least 14th out of the 26 teams in the men's tournament.
The women's trio lost to Wales and Uganda on their final day in the team event to finish 12th overall out of 16 countries.



Day Four Results - Thursday, 7 October

The women's table tennis team finished 12th out of 16 countries

Aquatics - Swimming

100m butterfly - Ian Powell qualified for the semi-finals, while Ian Hubert and Ben Lowndes set new personal bests in the heats
100m backstroke - Alexander Beaton and Ben Lowndes both posted times of more than one minute and did not progress from the heats
400m individual medley - Thomas Hollingsworth finished sixth in his heat in four minutes 39.63 seconds
Athletics
Men's 400m round one - Tom Druce qualified for the semi-finals, while fifth for Hywel Robinson was not enough to qualify
Bowls
Men's triples - Garry Collins, Dan De La Mare and Gary Pitschou beat Papua New Guinea on the tie-break
Men's pairs - Don Batiste and Ian Merrien were beaten in straight sets 2-0 by Malta and lost to the Falkland Islands by 1.5-0.5 after they were equal on points in one set
Women's pairs - Gwen De La Mare and Lucy Beere lost 2-0 to Brunei Darussalam.
Table Tennis
Men's team event - Garry Dodd and Olly Langlois and Matt Stubbington registered 3-0 wins over Malawi and Uganda.
Women's team event - Kay Chivers, Alice Loveridge and Dawn Morgan lost 3-1 to Wales and Uganda on the final day of their campaign to finish 12th overall
Tennis
Women's singles round three - Heather Watson lost 6-0 6-2 to number one seed Anastasia Rodionova (Australia) (from BBC)

I have really enjoyed the coverage of the commonwealth games so far - In particular to the artistic gymnastics which we are always huge fans of - Imogen Cairns and Lauren Mitchell were amazing.