Delhi CWG 2010 Part 1
I left Ashburton on Thursday 30 September, and met Squash
Referee Chris Buckland at Christchurch Airport. We kept each other
company at the various airports - 7 hours in Melbourne, where we
met up with Ann Wright of Christchurch, a Lawn Bowls referee.
The three of us flew together via Bangkok, arriving at Indira
Ghandi International Airport Delhi, on time at 10.30am Friday 1
October.
Delhi is 7.5 hours behind New Zealand, so we had been on the go
for over 30 hours.
We parted company at the airport, I was staying at the Sheraton,
the others elswhere. I joined up with a few English Tennis Umpires,
and we eventually were put into two courtesy cars for the eventful
journey to the Sheraton. The young driver stopped at traffic lights
to ask directions 3 times, and we doubled back at least once. My
colleagues later reported even longer more complicated shuttle
trips.
Delhi is a very vibrant bustling city of over 14 million people,
and I think we saw a good portion of them that afternoon!
Saturday I latched onto a trip to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal.
11 of us hired two people movers, and made the trip 200km south in
about 4 hours. The Taj Mahal was very busy, with vendors, hawkers
and beggars hassling us with every step until through the inner
security point, where we were scanned and even frisked!
4 hours back to Delhi, and then we were whisked off in two buses
to the Games Village area to be fitted for our uniforms. Despite
sending our sizes through several months ago, we still had to try
things on, and the whole exercise was about another 4 hours.
Sunday 3 October, it was walk time around the area, visiting the
World's tallest brick minaret, and grabbing a "tuk tuk" back to the
hotel. We departed at 2pm for the Stadium where the Opening
Ceremony was taking place at 7pm. Thoughts of being very early were
dispelled as our bus was refused entry to 3 checkpoints, and
admitted to a fourth, which was the opposite side of the stadium to
the pedestrian entrance on our ticket. A long walk, wrongly
directed at least twice, through two security checkpoints where our
umpires had deodorants, drink bottles, and my NZ coins confiscated,
then we found that the bay where our seats were located was around
the opposite side of the stadium to where our designated entrance
was - go figure? That used up most of the time we had in hand. The
Games opening was very spectacular, and it was a privilege to be
one of the 60,000 in the stadium. We had pretty good seats, just
above Prince Charles and co, and the NZ contingent decamped right
down in front of us.
Today, Monday was the first day of the Tennis Event, and I was
lucky enough to be selected for the Centre Court squad, working on
5 matches which were televised around the world - my sister spotted
me on Perth tv apparently.
Our matches included Leander Paes's Mixed doubles, Peter
Luczak's singles, Bopanna's singles, and Mixed doubles.
I also had a chat with Andrew Mulligan of The Crowd Goes Wild,
and Kiwis Rubin Statham and Marina Erakovic, who unfortunately lost
their Mixed doubles match.
A busy few days, and more to come......
Tony Brosnahan
White Badge Tennis Umpire
NZTUA