Delhi-belly strikes at the Commonwealth Games

Asia Correspondent John Sparks blogs from the Commonwealth Games in India.

If there is one thing that unites everyone in India – both citizens and visitors alike – it’s a healthy distrust for the water. Most like it tightly wrapped in plastic.

Of course this is not an option for the swimmers at the Commonwealth Games. If they want to win and they have to get in it.

A significant number of swimmers have not been taking the plunge however. It is thought that as many as 50 competitors have picked up various gastric ailments. Such problems are referred to locally and almost affectionately as “Delhi-belly”.  
Team officials have been raising concerns about the water quality at the Dr S P Mukherjee Swimming Pool for the last few days (in fact it contains two pools – one for training and one for competition). So, is this the reason why swimmers are dropping like flies?

Team officials from the Australian squad told us they have lost 12 of their number with a couple of “serious cases” sent to hospital.

The England team were loath to talk numbers however, despite swimmer Fran Halsall’s warning that she might “throw-up” over her interviewer last night. In the style of any good management consultant, Team England’s Chef de Mission, Craig Hunter, gave us a percentage figure of those suffering from tummy ailments taken from the entire 541-person England delegation. Weird. (It’s eight per cent if you’re interested).

Anyway, the organising committee called in the water testers who got to work this afternoon, checking the chlorine and the PH levels and the poolside filters.

We bumped into the committee’s secretary-general, Lalit Bhahot, who wears an ever-growing sheen of exasperation, just after he delivered the results of those tests to the team delegations.

“They show that there’s nothing wrong with the water at all,” he exclaimed. “I’m not saying that (the swimmers) are not sick,” he added, “but it has nothing to do with the swimming pool”.

Tonight, the head coach of the Australian swimming team seemed to agree with him. “The pool looks fine to me,” said Lee Nuggent. He fingered a number of other possible causes – including his own athletes. “You could look at 101 things here, like the tap water, the shower water and so much comes down to personal hygiene.”

So stick to bottled water, keep your mouth shut in the shower folks and you too may swim in the Commonwealth Games.