New Delhi, Sep 29 (IANS) Two-time world champion and Olympic cycling gold medallist Anna Maree Meares has never seen the kind of security in place for the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games. The 27-year-old Australian, however, is not complaining as the presence of the gun-toting uniformed men and women makes her feel comfortable and safe.
‘It was certainly different getting on to a bus and seeing all the military guys with the guns. I have never been so close to guns in my entire life. So yeah, we were trying to take photos to show people at home,’ Meares told reporters.
‘It is so unusual for us. But actually it made us more comfortable during our journey from the Games Village to the different venues,’ said Meares, who won the 500 metre time trial gold at the Melbourne CWG four years ago.
Probably the most high-profile competitor in the Australian team, the Queensland-born Meares set a world record on way to winning the gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics. In the Beijing Olympics two years back, with her pet event abolished, she got a silver in sprint.
Pragmatic in her approach, Meares considers the tight security as ‘part and parcel of the world in which we are living in currently.’
Having followed her elder sister Kerrie into the sport, Meares clinched the 500m team trial title in the 2004 World Track Championship in Melbourne and repeated the feat in the World Track Championship three years later at Palma de Mallorca in Spain.
Now participating in her third Commonwealth Games, she had won a bronze in the 2002 edition of the quadrennial meet in Manchester.
Meares, however, was aware that the competition would be tough in the Delhi Commonwealth Games and she has to constantly improve her performance.
‘I will have some tough competition here, mainly from my own teammates. These guys are going to raise their bar and I also have to raise their bar to match them. We have teams coming in from Canada, South Africa and New Zealand as well.’
