Wellington, Sept.22 (ANI): New Zealand's participation in the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi between October 3 and 14, may have come under question, but former athlete John Walker says the players want to compete and don't want to miss it.
Walker, who competed at two Olympics and four Commonwealth Games said he knew what it was like to be banned from competing in a international event.
"It's devastating. I was in the same situation as these athletes. I was supposed to go to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow but Muldoon wouldn't let us go. It was awful. The athletes want to go. They don't like boycotts," stuff.co.nz quoted Walker, as saying.
However, Walker said that dirty or noisy surroundings would take an extremely high toll on the athletes' preparation.
"Poor accommodation would be the pits. You spend 14 days there and it gets pretty boring, so you want it to be good. There's nothing much to do so you spend a lot of time in your room, meditating on your race," he said.
Walker said at the very least, there needed to be running water, a shower and toilets.
"That's what we had in my day, it was just basic. But it's got to be up to scratch. The last thing you want after training for four years is to get diarrhoea."
Walker said when he went to India in 1980, he took his own food and water to avoid getting sick, but you couldn't do that these days. (ANI)
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