Games preparation cutting it fine

 LAST Friday, July 4, marked exactly one year to go for the 2015 Pacific Games opening ceremony in Port Moresby. 

That means 365 days of non-stop hard work to get the city and the Games facilities and venues ready to host the biggest sports event in the Oceania region. 

Pacific Games Council pre­sident Vidhya Lakhan and his executives were in town last week for the Pacific Games Association meeting. This is a periodic meeting that the games council, the body that owns the Pacific Games rights, holds throughout the year. They had ample opportunity to inspect the venues and see the progress that has been made. 

Lakhan and his executives said they were pleased with the amount of work carried out and the progress made since their last visit earlier this year. 

They did however admit that the delivery of the venues in good time from the builder to the Port Moresby Pacific Games organisers would be tight. 

The overriding issue here is time. 

Is one year enough time to complete the building of all major venues plus the upgrading and refurbishing of other supporting facilities? 

Even though Lakhan gave the thumbs up on this visit one cannot help but think that the race against time is a battle Games organisers are in danger of losing if things do not go according to plan over the next 12 months. 

The margin for error and the allowance in time to make adjustments to venues or to modify where needed is not there. The venues must be tested and glitches or problems addressed before competition proper starts. 

One wonders where the time for that will be found. 

The claim by the organising committee and Sports Minister Justin Tkatchenko that the 2015 Pacific Games will be the best yet may need to be revised. 

The only priority right now is to deliver a Pacific Games that meets the standards set by the Pacific Games Council. Peter Stewart, the Games chief executive officer, has stated previously that the event would go ahead as planned regardless of whether all the venues are completed. 

He said earlier in the year that there were contingency plans in place to cater for such a situation should it arise. What those contingency plans are exactly was not specified but it is not hard to imagine some sports shifted to Lae in the event one or two venues in the capital are not ready. 

The only venue that seems to be changing on a weekly basis is the Taurama Aquatic Centre and Gymnasium.

 This 1000-seat venue will host the swimming events but will have weightlifting and volleyball. 

The National Football Stadium (formerly the Lloyd Robson Oval) in Boroko still looks like a vacant block and work started on that venue a few months after the aquatic centre. It will have a seating capacity of 15,000. 

The Sir John Guise Stadium, which will host all track and field events, would have be a top priority as there is no other proper athletics track in the country apart from the Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium in Lae. 

The Rita Flynn Netball Courts redevelopment only started last month and so far the Bisini Parade grounds that house softball, soccer, rugby union and cricket have not been touched. 

The concern here is that the city will not be ready, despite what organisers say, to host the Games next July at the current rate of progress. 

Why is Port Moresby even in this predicament to begin with? PNG won the bid to host the Pacific Games in 2009 at a meeting for all Pacific nations in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. That was during the Pacific Mini Games held there. Since that time there has been one Pacific Games (New Caledonia, 2011) and one Mini Games (Wallis and Futuna, 2013). 

What needed to happen after the Cook Islands meeting was that the National Government and the PNG Olympic Committee and Sports Federation should have set about executing the plan to host the 2015 Games. 

Instead there was two years of inactivity, in terms of venue construction, until work was finally started halfway through 2012. 

The organisers have continuously stated that the schedule will be kept and that all venues will be delivered on time. 

But the public can only go on what they see and so far it looks like the builders will struggle to meet the deadlines.