Games entry drops by one—Antigua

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33433, 15 January 1974, Page 1

Games entry drops by one—Antigua

Christchurch’s hope of having the biggest entry in a Commonwealth Games slumped yesterday with the news that Antigua would not send a team.

Antigua told the Games Organising Committee that it would not be sending its planned team of seven athletes and weightlifters because of financial problems.

Antigua’s withdrawal comes after a similar move by Guyana and the number of countries now expected to compete is 41, one fewer than the record of 42 entries at the Edinburgh Games in 1970. Two countries which have entered have still not forwarded their individual entries to the committee. By yesterday Bermuda and Sierra Leone had not named their teams. The committee will still keep the cut-off date open as long as possible, so long as the technical committee’s preparation with the draws is not affected. “The countries will only be debarred when it becomes clear that the completion of draws will be seriously affected because of the lack of information,” said the organising committee chairman (Mr R. S. Scott). The arrivals at the village yesterday were 52 English athletes, the balance of the team, the six-member Gibraltan team, the Grenada team of one woman, the St Vincent team, and the 10-member Guernsey contingent. No Tanzanians The organising committee’s reception party also went to

the airport yesterday to greet the Tanzanian party of 45 athletes and officials but they did not arrive.

The committee now has no idea of the arrival time of the Tanzanians. “They have just disappeared — just like the Lesotho party,” said Mr Scott.

Profiteering Seaking at the news conference last evening, Mr Scott said that more instances of ticket profiteering had be-

come known to the organising committee. “Some of the cases are pretty terrible profiteering and the committee does intend to do something about it,” he said. “We can’t put profiteering in a vacuum if people see an opportunity to make money out of the Games." Mr Scott said that if tickets were invalidated, they would not be available for resale and there could be some empty seats at the venues. The action the committee would take would be to invalidate the tickets if it was verified that they had been sold for more than the face value.