4:55 AM
Shweta Pandey
With a little less than a year to go for the 2012 London Olympics, the UK High Commissioner to Ghana, Peter Jones, has declared London ready and good to go for the world’s most glamorous sporting event.
According to him, the infrastructure for the event are all ready for use, a sharp contrast to previous events in which host cities raced against time to complete the stadia on time for the competition.
"We are on track. The good news is that most of the stadiums and the sporting venues are already available. As you probably know, for international sporting events, that’s kind of unusual. Normally there is a rush towards the end. But we got ours completed with a year to go,” Jones stated.
He was speaking to Myjoyonline.com during the second inter-Embassy competition held at the El-wak Sports Stadium over the week-end.
Describing the London Olympics as the “Great Games” he said the 2012 edition “is going to be one of the best games ever.”
Whilst assuring that Great Britain will put up a spirited performance in the competition, the honour for individual athletes to participate in such an event was for him more crucial than the league table.
Peter Jones said London and indeed the UK will look forward to 2012 with great expectation largely because apart from the Olympics, the Queen will be celebrating her 60th Anniversary on the throne, a magnificent feat worth celebrating.
“It is going to be a terrific year. We are going to have the whole world looking at us,” he intimated.
Healthy competition
The UK football team against the US
As if by design, it was the turn of the UK High Commission in Ghana to organize this year’s edition of the inter-Embassy competition and they did so with panache.
The USA, Japan, Spanish, Chinese, India, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Embassies and High Commission competed in various games, including five-aside football, table tennis, athletics, volley ball, basket ball, chess, Tug of peace and scrabble.
For embassy officials, who often, have been offering visas or ‘bouncing’ others, it was a rare opportunity to flex their muscles in a healthy competitive atmosphere.
The host Embassy won gold in the table tennis – men division with their women winning silver in the female division. Their female again won gold in the football tournament.
The Spanish Embassy showed why Spain and Barcelona are the current World and European Club champions by winning the male football competition.
The US dominated the Basketball competition by winning gold in both the male and female divisions. The US men again won gold in both the Volley ball and Tug of Peace events.
Denmark (men) won the chess competition, with Japan (men) winning 100 meters event. The Indian women picked silver in the women 100m event.
Canada won gold in the 4×100 male and female event.
The games were also to afford embassy officials and employees the opportunity to get to familiarize with each other.
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