22 March 2006
“I’m disappointed Helen Clark didn’t see fit to travel three hours to come over here,” Walker was quoted saying yesterday.
“Obviously she was either too busy or doesn’t like sport or both of those things, but it would have been nice for her to come and support her athletes.”
Maybe he should have taken a look at Clark’s diary first.
Clark’s senior spokesman David Lewis said the New Zealand leader was concerned with issues of state importance.
“The prime minister would love to be in Melbourne watching the games, but unfortunately she has a few other things on her mind,” Lewis said.
Clark yesterday announced the resignation of a senior minister, David Parker, who admitted filing false annual returns to the nation’s company registrar’s office.
COO-EEE Karak, where are you? Doug the Scotch doggie and Canoose the goose from Canada have been searching without luck for the red-tailed black cockatoo mascot of the Melbourne 2006 Games.
At an official news conference for the Scotland and Canada teams, the mascots challenged Karak to a race at 3 pm Thursday.
The Scottish and Canadian mascots instituted the race at the Kuala Lumpur in 1998, taking on Wira, the Malaysian orangutan and a late entrant from Manchester, who won the dash in at the main athletic stadium.
The race was not contested at the last games, but some want it on the competition schedule again in Melbourne.
“Karak’s diary seems permanently busy and he’s not returning calls,” Scotland team spokesman John Lindsay said. The Canadians, he said, were starting to think Karak had the genetic makeup of a chicken.
The Scots and Canadians sent their mascots to the pool on Monday looking for Karak — only to be hustled off the pool deck by security due to the unanticipated appearance of Prime Minister John Howard.
“Security cautioned the mascots and were running police checks on the goose and the dog to see if they’re recognised animal activists!” Lindsay said.
MALTA’S first medal at the Commonwealth Games was won by a heavily pregnant Australian with parents born on the Mediterranean island. Rebecca Madyson, who lives north of Melbourne and is expecting her second child in about six weeks, finished second yesterday in the women’s trapshooting event.
Madyson, runner-up to South Africa’s Diane Swanton, is a former six-year member of the Australian squad. But because she had trouble making the Australian team with other more established shooters, she did an Internet search for her maiden surname, Attard. She discovered she could shoot for Malta because of her heritage — her parents came from Malta — and she’s been doing so since March last year.
“I Googled my name,” Madyson told Australian Associated Press. “It came up with the Maltese Shooting Federation so I e-mailed them and I asked them if they’d allow me to represent them. They said yes,” she said.
Being heavily pregnant affected her in the competition — “the baby kept kicking me in the bladder, that woke me up,” she said.
TOM Jones, or Sir Tom as he’s about to be, won’t get to see his grandson competing in the Commonwealth Games because Jones is going to London to visit the queen.
The Welsh singer will receive his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on March 29, his website said.
His grandson, Alex Woodward, is part of Wales’ 18-member shooting team and will be competing in open full bore and open full bore pairs events.
“I don’t think he is going to be here because he has to work and then he is going to be knighted,” Woodward, 22, told the South Wales Echo newspaper.
FAMILIARITY didn’t breed contempt for Kathy Watt. Instead, it was motivation to keep competing at age 41 in the Commonwealth Games.
The 1992 Olympic road race champion had hometown advantage in the extreme: her regular training route along Melbourne’s seaside became the games course for the individual time trial.
“When I heard the games were going to be in Melbourne ... and the turn was at the bike shop — I couldn’t resist,” said Watt, who owns a bicycle shop along the course.
“I’ve probably ridden this road thousands of times.”
Watt had to settle for silver behind Australian team-mate Oenone Wood in yesterday’s time trial.
RYAN Pini became a national hero when he won Papua New Guinea’s first ever Commonwealth Games swimming gold medal.
“Truly Amazing,” the Post-Courier newspaper said in a headline of Pini’s upset win over former world champion Michael Klim, who was pictured with his head in his hands alongside a triumphant Pini in front page photographs yesterday.
“The nation last night roared itself hoarse” urging Pini on as the race was shown live on television, The National daily said.
Prime Minister Michael Somare reportedly briefly stopped a Cabinet meeting to watch the race and then faxed his compliments to Pini.
“Let me be among the first to say congratulations for your valiant effort,” Somare said. “You can imagine how proud I am to see you come first among a world-class group of swimmers. You have done our country proud.”
Pini’s 52.64-second win was his impoverished country’s second ever gold medal at the games, after a lawn bowls win in 1990.
Born and raised in Port Moresby, Pini, 24, moved to Australia five years ago to train and study. He said his home country had only one swimming pool suitable for training, and even that was often unusable because there wasn’t always enough money for chlorine.
