India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Former Olympic 200 and 400 metres champion Michael Johnson has said that the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games were doomed from the start. Over 850 athletes and officials arrived on Tuesday at the Games village, which has been marred in controversy over its unpreparedness, to showcase their talents at the Games, starting from October 3-14. Johnson said that was all down to the decision to stage the Games in October, outside the mainstream season for athletics, traditionally the event's central attraction. "This edition of the Commonwealth Games was doomed from the start," Johnson wrote in The Times newspaper. "First, the timing was all wrong...Keep in mind the traditional season for athletics -- which would be one of, if not the, premier sports of the Commonwealth Games -- takes place from April to the end of August," he wrote. "That's if the athlete has not competed in the indoor season taking place in January and February. To finish the season in August and then go back into training or try to maintain peak competitive form is extremely difficult in preparation for an event that takes place more than one month after your last race. "This is also taking place at a time when most track and field athletes are in their annual four to six-week break from training and this off-season could be one of the most important of all with the World Championships taking place next August," Johnson wrote. He questioned the worth of an event restricted to former British Empire nations, saying the Commonwealth Games "have struggled in past years to get the best athletes to take them seriously" and that in athletics "a Commonwealth title barely registers any respect on a global scale," The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Delhi Commonwealth Games doomed from the start, says Olympic legend Johnson