Surrey weightlifter Parm Phangura spent more than $20,000 of his own money so he could win a spot on the Canadian team and compete at next month’s 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Now he’s not sure if he’ll be going. Like many Canadian athletes he’s getting the daily reports of what has become the "debacle in Delhi," and he’s wondering if Canada will pull out of the troubled Games.
"I was disappointed when I heard all this was going on," Phangura said Wednesday when asked about reports that the athletes’ village is a dysfunctional, filthy mess and that there are concerns about disease and security.
"All the hard work, all the sacrifices I had to make, not just training-wise but financially, it disappoints me," he said.
"Now it’s on a wait-and-see basis. But even if it does happen, it alarms me that there was a car bombing in Delhi, there was a shooting, the bridge collapsed. It’s a concern. There’s a lot of mosquitoes, fatal diseases."
On Wednesday part of a ceiling collapsed in the weightlifting venue. No one was injured. On Tuesday a pedestrian overpass to the main stadium collapsed and at least 27 people were hurt.
Canadian Commonwealth Games team officials who are in Delhi are telling athletes to stay away until further notice. The Games are scheduled for Oct. 3 to 16.
"The bottom line is that the accommodations in the athletes’ village simply aren’t ready," Commonwealth Games Canada’s director of sport Scott Stevenson said in a statement.
In the village, toilets are backed up, there are problems with wiring, garbage being stored in rooms, dogs roaming about and human excrement.
There are concerns about malaria and dengue fever. Recently there was a car bombing and two tourists were shot by a motorcycle gunman.
Phangura isn’t scheduled to fly to Delhi until Sept. 30. He hasn’t heard from weighlifting officials and is hopeful that the Games will still take place.
"As an athlete, you’re trained to look at the positives," he said. "If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. If it’s not, then it just isn’t meant to be.
"But you’d think they’d have enough people to go in there, like Molly Maid, and clean the place. It puzzles me. I know how India is. There’s a bit of corruption here, a bit there, and money doesn’t go to the right places."
Phangura, 30, a husband and father, was born in Canada but his parents are from the Punjab and he was looking forward to visiting relatives after the Games.
He visited India when he was eight years old. He remembers being terrified when he saw a live cobra.
"I was planning to go to the Punjab and see where my parents grew up and visit distant relatives that I haven’t seen for 22 years," said Phangura. "I can still do that at a later time, but the most disappointing thing would be not competing at the Commonwealth Games. Some of my family members are going to come to watch me lift. That would be overwhelming."
Phangura trains in his garage. He paid his own way to national championships this summer in Montreal.
He’s been working part-time, ironically enough, as an occupational health safety manager.
A lot of Canadian athletes are in limbo.
On Wednesday the women’s field hockey team got word that they wouldn’t be flying to Delhi on Thursday as planned but would have to wait until Monday. They would have been among the earliest visitors to the village and Team Canada officials thought it prudent to wait.
On Wednesday Canadian archers Dietmar Trillus of King City, Ont., and Kevin Tataryn of Stonewall, Man., pulled out, joining Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt on the growing list of international athletes who are deserting Delhi.
"I’ll take my safety over a medal any day," Tataryn, 25, told Postmedia.
But rugby sevens captain Phil Mack of Victoria didn’t seem fazed.
"I’ve heard a bit about it but I don’t really concern myself with that," he said Wednesday.
"We’re just focusing on our training to make sure that we’re ready when we get there."
The team flies to Toronto next Wednesday and heads to Delhi the next day.
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