NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – The official weigh-in for the Commonwealth Games boxing competition ran into complete chaos yesterday with teams complaining of faulty test scales at the Talkatora Indoor stadium.
Inaccurate test scales had a string of boxers unnecessarily trying to shed weight to get into the desired category, Australia team spokesperson John Gatfield said.
“The athletes weighed themselves on the test scales, and found themselves to be over. They got back to the sauna trying to lose some weight and when they came back, they weighed more than the last reading,” Gatfield told Reuters.
“So there was a lot of chaos there and they have decided to have a second weigh-in Tuesday morning. It was really ridiculous.”
The build-up to the Delhi Games had been hit by infrastructure failures, a dengue fever outbreak and security fears after a tourist shooting, and the latest fiasco underlines organisers’ shambolic preparations.
Gatfield even raised doubt about the official scales as one of the Australian boxers, in the 102-kg category, weighed three kilograms more than usual.
“He struggles to make it to the 102-kg category back in Australia, but he weighed 105 here. May be something is not right with the official scales, too.”
Competition manager Lenni Gama denied any problem with the scales.
“All this fuss is created by the teams who have overweight boxers in their team. The scales are perfect,” Gama told Reuters.
