The Delhi Commonwealth Games crisis deepen. The last chaos involved animals moving into the Games village.
Apparenly, it not only about filthy washroom, broken beds but also monkeys, stray dogs, mosquitoes and snakes have been menacing Delhi's Commonwealth Games venues and the Australia's chef de mission, Steve Moneghetti, says his team can handle it. He's not worried by the discovery of a snake in one of the village rooms at the weekend.
''I think we are OK from the snake point of view,'' Mr Moneghetti said. ''We are Australians, we are used to dealing with the most venomous snakes in the world, so a couple of snakes here's not going to be an issue for us.''
A team of snake charmers has reportedly been stationed at the village and will be paid 1000 rupees ($23) for each snake caught.
In a separate incident, an adult cobra of more than a metre was found at Delhi's R. K. Khanna Tennis Stadium.
Dog catchers have removed more than 120 stray dogs from the Games village since last week and additional arrangements are reportedly being made to prevent monkeys from causing disruption at Games-related venues. This includes the deployment of additional trained langur monkeys to scare away smaller relatives.
Australian team members have also been advised to take precautions against mosquito bites because of an outbreak of dengue fever.
Mr Moneghetti, who arrived on Sunday, said he was confident the athletes would have ''the stage and the environment to perform at their best'' and gave a glowing assessment of the Games village, parts of which were last week described as filthy and uninhabitable. ''The conditions in the village are as good as I have been [in],'' he said.
But controversy continued to plague organisers yesterday.
Head of the Commonwealth Games Federation Mike Fennell defended the federation's New Zealand-born chief executive, Mike Hooper, after he made remarks interpreted as critical of the Indian government.
Mr Hooper said the federation was at ''the mercy of'' Indian governments for the delivery of games venues. ''Renewed deadlines came and went. New reasons for delays kept coming up. Absolutely exasperating from our perspective,'' he said.
Delhi's Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit yesterday said conditions in the village were ''improving by the hour'' but refused to give a deadline for when all facilities would be ready.
Reports also claimed that Mr Hooper had been critical of Delhi's large population.
Mr Hooper denied the reports and Mr Fennell endorsed this, saying he could ''personally attest'' that Mr Hooper did not make any reference at all to the people of India.