Some of the
Commonwealth dignitaries already in town to grace the meeting of the General
Assembly have shared their experience on the crucial issues of the major
underlining principles of the Commonwealth Games in an exclusive interview with
The Point yesterday at their resort.
Robert
McVeigh, the Chairman of Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games Council,
elucidated that Northern Ireland is like The Gambia with a
population of 1.5million people. He said, "the Commonwealth is a great
opportunity for a country of our size to market our names and perhaps encourage
tourism with bigger nations like Australia, England, Canada, India and as well
as smaller nations such as Nauru, Monseratt and Guernsey."
Mr. McVeigh
further explained, "The main goal of the Commonwealth Games is to foster
friendship, improve our organisational ability and preparations in future games
and to learn about other people's cultures and their attitudes."
Mr. McVeigh
finally expressed his impressions about The Gambia and it's friendly people.
Another
delegate who spoke to this paper was the 1st Vice President of Jamaica Mr. Don Anderson. He also expressed
the similarities between The Gambia and Jamaica saying that they expecting some
update from India on how far they have gone with
preparations for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in 2010 in Delhi. He profusely claimed that Jamaica is not only known in Commonwealth
Games but also a success story at the Olympics especially in the track and
field events. This, Mr. Anderson said, is owing to better programme centres
with high profile coaches, who are making all efforts for Jamaica to maintain their dominance and rub
shoulders with bigger nations.
In a
similar event the president of the CaymanIsland's Olympic Committee, Mr. Donald
McLean, representing a BritishOverseasTerritory with a population of 55,000 people,
also admitted the essence of the Commonwealth Games is that it will help
athletes to expose themselves with top class athletes in a major competition.
Mr. McLean too admitted that the Commonwealth Games could serve as a ground for
smaller nations to cement bonds with sport committees like Australia and India.
In all
eight islands which remain under British control were represented at the
meeting. They were Bermuda, the Cayman
Islands,
the British
Virgin Islands, Monseratt, Anguilla, Turks and Cailos, St Helena and the Falkland Islands.
