Indian CWG organizers tricked by using model tower to show readiness: Currie

Wellington, Sep 24 (ANI): New Zealand chef de mission Dave Currie has blamed the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth organizers for using a model tower to suggest that everything was fine with the accommodation in the Games village.

New Zealand has delayed its takeover of its tower in the Games village until Sunday and told athletes not to arrive until Tuesday, two days later than originally planned.

"It is probably a fair question. We'd had great difficulty getting to the accommodation area on any of the visits we've had. They had this model tower, which is immaculate. They had said all towers would be finished and furnished to the [specifications] of the model tower," Currie said.

"In May when we were here, we finally did get in and had a very brief look at one apartment. It wasn't finished, there was a lot of debris around, but we were more concerned at that stage where we were going to be in the village and what decorations and banners and signage we needed, to get some measurements around all of that.

"Still they wouldn't let us into any significant areas of the tower," Stuff.co.nz quoted Currie, as saying.

Currie said the Commonwealth Games Federation had obviously faced the same challenges, and added that they could have done better by speeding the finishing touches in the village.

"We're somewhat grumpy with them, that they didn't have a better process of understanding how bad things were," he said.

In a telephone conference with New Zealand media last night he regularly repeated that he felt the games' organising committee had been in denial about the problems. (ANI)