Work For 1970 Games Well Advanced

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 7

Work For 1970 Games Well Advanced

(From BRUCE KOHN. N.Z.P.A. staff correspondent)

LONDON.

Although more than a year remains before the ninth Commonwealth Games are due to be opened in Edinburgh, facilities and arrangements for the sporting festival are well advanced.

The programme of events, ticket prices and facilities have been settled, construction of the swimming pool is up to schedule —it is due to be used in November —and the main athletics stadium is taking shape.

In the minds of organising officials the 1970 games will be the best arranged since the competition was first staged at Ontario in 1930. On the progress they have made so far it is likely that their aspirations will be realised.

The athletics stadium, named the Meadowbank Sports Centre, and the Royal Commonwealth Pool compete for the title of the mostimpressive venue. The main consideration in construction of both has been that they should become Scottish sporting centres after the games and not simply be of top-class competitive standard with little attraction for the public. The sports centre, due for completion by the end of the

year, occupies a 25-acre site less than two miles from the centre of the city. For the games it will have a seating capacity of 30,000.

Athletes will run on a tartan all-weather track. Badminton, fencing and wrestling will take place in sports halls within the complex. A cycling velodrome is under construction behind the sports halls at one end of the stadium. When the games are over, other facilities, including squash courts, an indoor rifle range, a rock climbing wall with special safety devices, and an indoor rowing simulator will be brought into use. The total cost of the centre is estimated at more than $4.6m. The British Government is assisting the' Edinburgh City Corporation with a grant of about sl.sm. Swimming competitors will be the most ideally placed of any of the sports representatives. The pool is less than

100 yards from Edinburgh University hostel accommodation which will be turned into the “games village.” The pool, 50 metres long and 21 metres wide, will have eight racing lanes. Round it will be seating for 2500 people. The diving pool is almost alongside one end of the main pool. The cost of the swimming complex in estimated at about $3.2m. There is accommodation for 1400 people in separate rooms at the university, but about 1800 athletes and team officials are expected to be on hand for the games. As a result the organisers propose to instal bunks in some of the rooms. The rooms are about 12ft by 12ft and, in the view of Edinburgh authorities, should provide ample space for the visitors, even with the second bunk. Team managers will have small suites consisting of bedroom, lounge and kitchen. The main dining room will seat 600 people at one time. About $4.25 a head will be spent each day on food for the competitors. Easily Reached Bowls, boxing and weightlifting will be held in other parts of the city. But the venues for these sports are expected to be as easily reached as the main athletic stadi-m and the swimming pool—by shuttle-service buses running every few minutes through the centre of Edinburgh. The organising committee says the cost to Edinburgh of running the games—including the $14,000 to be spent on medals—will be about slm. It plans to recoup $600,000 through ticket sales, programmes and the sale of television and other commercial rights. The remainder is being sought through a public appeal which so far has brought in $380,000. The Edinburgh and Glasgow City Corporations each gave $50,000.