Commonwealth Games: NZ team in 'safe bubble'

New Zealand's athletes will not be allowed out of a tightly controlled security "bubble" during the Commonwealth Games.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee last night declared the team would attend the October 3-14 Games in Delhi, after it received positive reports on progress at the "inexcusable and unacceptable" village.

However, athletes will not be able to move from accredited areas, meaning all they will see is the troubled village, the Games venues and the transport routes between the village and the venues.

An NZOC spokesman told the Weekend Herald that any athlete who strayed from the accredited areas would be deemed in breach of team protocols and could face sanction.

The NZOC's decision to attend appears to be in line with the thinking of most countries, though serious questions remain about how an event that was supposed to highlight India's burgeoning status as an economic powerhouse has become an embarrassing calamity.

Chef de mission Dave Currie has admitted that his former glowing testimony of the village was based on seeing the equivalent of a show home and that he had been more concerned about securing measurements for team banners and bunting than actual progress on the buildings.

Last night, secretary-general Barry Maister defended the NZOC, saying no country had been given access to other areas of the village.

"The Commonwealth Games Federation has a lot to answer for in that regard," he said.

"It is their job to ensure on behalf of their members, and we're one, that the total village was ready for habitation. In my view they did not do so."

Mr Maister detailed the "inexcusable and unacceptable" conditions within the village that greeted him and NZOC president Mike Stanley, saying building materials had been left in piles in the corridors and there was a general state of dirt and filth.

Mr Stanley said he had been an athlete at Games, "I've been an administrator associated with Games, I have never experienced these conditions before".

The NZOC leaders would not condemn the decision to give the Games to India, but they cautioned that a more stringent bidding process was required in future.

In a boost for India's frantic, last-minute preparations, Commonwealth Games Federation president Mike Fennell said yesterday that conditions at the squalid village had greatly improved, even as he said the cleanup work should continue urgently.

Mr Fennell, who rushed to Delhi to deal with the trouble, said staff had told him that "considerable improvements have been made within the village".

"It is vital that all remedial work that has already started continues with the greatest urgency," he said.

The cost of the games, pegged at less than $100 million in 2003, has soared, with estimates ranging from $3 billion to more than $10 billion.

Cyclist Greg Henderson, who has won four medals at previous Games, was the first Kiwi to withdraw, but teammate Hayden Roulston confirmed he would take part.

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: AGENCIES