Games boss apologises for closing ceremony ‘stuffup’

MELBOURNE: Goldoc chairman Peter Beattie has apologised for a ‘‘stuffup’’ at the closing ceremony of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games after athletes were marginalised from the television broadcast and a string of officials hogged the spotlight with lengthy speeches.

The athletes entered Carrara Stadium before the broadcast began and spent most of the ceremony cloaked in darkness as Beattie and a number of other dignitaries took to a stage to shower praise on the April 415 Games.

Local media slammed organisers for taking the spotlight away from the athletes, and Australia’s paraathlete flagbearer Kurt Fearnley said it was ‘‘pretty strange’’.

Beattie said organisers had intended to spare athletes a long wait before entering the venue but had got the broadcasting decision wrong.

‘‘The last thing they want is standing in a field for an hour waiting to get into a closing ceremony,’’ Beattie told the Seven Network’s Sunrise break fast show yesterday.

‘‘That was clearly a stuffup. Now, I’m sorry. If I get a chance I’ll apologise to Kurt (Fearnley) this morning.

‘‘Should they have been part of the actual ceremony that was broadcast? Of course, they should have been.’’

Images of joyous athletes filing in behind their nations’ flags have been a feature of closing ceremony broadcasts at Commonwealth and Olympic Games for decades.

‘‘If you do it and it doesn’t get covered on telly, does the tree actually fall? I don’t know. It was pretty strange, but what do you do?’’ Fearnley, who won gold in the T54 marathon, said. — Reuters