 1.
The
Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games will be held from 15-26 March
2006.
2.
Melbourne will host the XVIII Commonwealth Games and is the
fourth Australian city to host the Games following
Sydney (1938),
Perth (1962) and
Brisbane (1982).
3. The Melbourne 1956 Olympic Games had 3,184 athletes competing
in 15 sports. It is anticipated that 4,500 athletes will compete in
Melbourne in 2006 in 16 sports and 24 disciplines.
4. Eleven nations, including Australia, participated in the first
British Empire Games in Hamilton, Canada, in 1930. There are 71
nations in the Commonwealth, representing over a third of the
world's population and all are expected to compete in Melbourne in
2006.
5. Six sports featured in the first Empire Games in Hamilton,
Canada in 1930 - track & field, bowls, boxing, rowing,
swimming/diving and wrestling. Melbourne will present 12 individual
and four team sports involving 24 disciplines.
6. Athletics, boxing and swimming are the only sports to have
been on the programme at every Games - they will continue their
unbroken participation in Melbourne.
7. Following the introduction of team sports in
Kuala Lumpur in 1998, each Games must now have a minimum of two
and a maximum of four team sports. In 2006 team sports included on
the programme are basketball, hockey, rugby sevens and netball.
8. Melbourne will introduce basketball to the sports programme
for the first time at the Commonwealth Games. After making their
debut in
Manchester, table tennis, mountain bike and triathlon will
return.
9. Fourteen of the 16 sports at the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth
Games will be staged at venues within a three-kilometre radius of
the central business district.
10. A new 50m competition pool is being constructed at the
Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, ensuring that Melbourne has one
of the best aquatic facilities in the world.
11. The Commonwealth Games Village in Parkville will become home
for 6000 athletes and officials.
12. The Games Village is traditionally open for a total of 25
days, starting 10 days before the opening ceremony to allow athletes
the necessary time to acclimatise and adjust to their surroundings
before they compete. The Games Village closes three days after the
closing ceremony to allow enough time for each team's departure.
13. A free 12-day cultural and free entertainment program will
fill Melbourne's Central Business District, parks and gardens with
activity during the Games. For the first time the entire Melbourne
Cricket Ground/Melbourne Park precinct will join with the city,
Birrarung Marr Park and the Yarra Valley to transform Melbourne.
14. Visitors to the Games are unlikely to go hungry - or thirsty.
The state of Victoria has around 3,500 restaurants with 2,500 of
them in metropolitan Melbourne and 400 in the Central Business
District. There are more than 320 vineyards, 100 within one hour of
the city. Visitors also have a place to stay; Melbourne has 25,000
hotel beds within 5km of the city.
15. Melbourne's transport system is well developed, diverse and
fully integrated with the fourth largest tramway system in the
world. It stretches along 244km of track and has 450 trams efficient
in delivering spectators to major events.
16. The state of Victoria has a population of 5m speaking 170
languages; not surprising when you consider one in four Victorians
was born overseas.
17. The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) will host the opening and
closing ceremonies and track & field in 2006. The MCG has a long
history of hosting track & field competition; most famously the 1956
Olympic Games. The MCG was also the home of the first amateur
athletics meeting in Australia in September 1864 and the first ever
Australasian Athletics Championship in 1893.
18. Athletes and officials will live in 155 permanent houses, 68
apartments, 14 townhouses and 115 cabins. Sale of the village cabins
is progressing well. The cabins will be released for sale via tender
later this month. 88 of the permanent houses have sold already, with
a median price of £360,000.
19. Volunteers will be a key contributor to the Games success .
Up to 15,000 volunteers will be required to assist with running the
Games. They will be joined by 1,200 technical officials, 5,000
contractors and over 500 full time staff.
20. The main dining hall at the Games Village will seat 1,800
athletes at any one time and cater for 20,000 meals per day.
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