More troubles for Commonwealth Games: empty seats in stadiums and arenas across New Delhi

Empty seats plague Commonwealth Games in India

NEW DELHI — Seas of empty seats in stadiums and arenas. Scales that gave the wrong readings for boxers at their weigh-ins. And then the royal flub: an official who identified Prince Charles as “Prince Diana.”

The first few days of competition at the Commonwealth Games are proving nearly as troubled as the squalor and scandal that plagued the run-up to the sporting event.

Following a Bollywood-esque opening spectacle that was supposed to turn the focus onto the field of play, a whole new set of problems has arisen at India’s troubled games. Chief among them: how to get a nation of 1.1 billion people interested enough to actually attend some of the events.

On Tuesday’s second day of competition, no more than 100 people were in the 19,000-seat MDC Stadium, which some have called the best field hockey stadium in the world.

Fewer than 20 people were in the 5,000-seat tennis stadium for the first match of the tournament, although hundreds arrived later to watch local hopefuls Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes play in doubles.

Only 58 spectators watched the opening match of netball — a sport similar to basketball but played without a backboard. Swimming attracted a comparatively big crowd, with up to 1,200 people creating some atmosphere.

An official at the 4,000-seat velodrome, where only about 500 people watched cyclists circle the track, blamed a lack of enthusiasm for some events.

“People have no interest in the sport,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. “You will probably find more people at wrestling or weightlifting, in which India is good. Cycling is a Western sport.”

The Commonwealth Games — an Olympic-style competition held every four years — bring together nearly 7,000 athletes and officials from 71 countries and territories. India wanted the games, which ended up costing between $3 billion and $10 billion, to showcase its emergence as a growing economic power and possibly attract a future Olympics.

But construction delays, corruption allegations, concerns about security and heavy monsoons put preparations for the games behind schedule, with complaints about unfinished and filthy accommodations in the athletes’ village embarrassing the hosts.

As of Tuesday afternoon — the eve of the start of track and field events — officials were still preparing Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, laying turf on the infield and clearing debris from the site, which also was used for the opening ceremony.

The monsoons led to an outbreak in New Delhi of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease that put an Indian lawn bowling team manager in the hospital. Also Tuesday, a teenage boy called in an anonymous bomb threat at the village that turned out to be a hoax.

Some blame the poor attendance on sultry weather that saw temperatures in the 90s. Others blamed the fact that India was hosting a five-day cricket match elsewhere in the country against Australia that probably kept many locals watching their national sport on TV.

Ticket costs also could be a factor — even the cheapest tickets at 50 rupees (about $1) are too high for many of New Delhi’s poorest people. More than 800 million Indians survive on less than $2 a day.

Organizers are considering giving away free tickets to children and the underprivileged to fill the stadiums.

Mukul Kesavan, an author and history professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University, suggested that many Indians just aren’t interested in the Olympic-style sports.

“I’m surprised that they have as many spectators as they say they do,” Kesavan told The Associated Press. “Short of large team sports or maybe tennis, which might attract a die-hard audience, who’s going to watch archery or lawn bowls? None of these things sink particularly deeply into the Indian sporting psyche.”

At a contradictory news conference, local organizing committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi said he was confident the attendance problem had been resolved by the installation of box offices at every arena — allowing spectators to buy their tickets in more places, rather than wait in long lines elsewhere.

“As of today, things are all right,” Kalmadi said.

But problems have kept cropping up at the games, which run until Oct. 14.

“There are some issues that we had to deal with, and we have assigned those issues to various people to correct,” Commonwealth Games President Michael Fennell said. “And we’re expecting that those will be corrected during the course of the day.”

Jiji Thomson, an organizing committee official, told the news conference he had not received a report that several Australian athletes had become ill in the village. Kalmadi then said he would check press reports and answer Wednesday, but Fennell broke in and said they had had a report about the sick athletes and were looking into it.

Athletes and coaches complained Monday when scales at the boxing venue were found to be giving incorrect readings, forcing some boxers to take desperate, unnecessary measures to shed weight. But organizing committee secretary-general Lalit Bhanot refused to admit it was a major issue, saying it had been “rectified.”

“There’s no problem at all,” Bhanot said. He is the same official who tried to dismiss complaints last month of excrement in rooms at the athletes’ village simply as a difference between Western and Indian standards of cleanliness.

Kalmadi, who was booed loudly at the opening ceremony because many Indians blame him for the games’ disorganization, also misspoke at the news conference when he was praising Sunday’s extravaganza. In describing the show, attended by Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, he said “Prince Diana” had been there — then quickly corrected himself. Diana was Charles’ former wife who died in a car crash in 1997.