Beetles, birds and buses cause trouble in Delhi

The home nations won their first medals of the Commonwealth Games on Monday, but Delhi's organisational problems continued as beetles, birds and buses caused trouble for swimmers the day after the boxing weigh-ins had to be postponed because of faulty scales.

England's first medal of the Games came courtesy of swimmer Rebecca Adlington, who won a bronze in the 200m freestyle, although she finished behind Jazz Carlin of Wales and Australia's Kylie Palmer, who won gold.

There were two more silvers in the pool for English swimmers in the men's 4x100m freestyle and for Michael Rock in the 200m butterfly.

But in keeping with the chaotic nature of the build-up to the Games, it wasn't just the competitors who took centre stage. The men's 4x100m race was delayed when a swarm of five-horned rhinoceros beetles took a dip in the pool.

Simon Burnett, swimming the first leg for England, looked concerned about the prospect of swimming through the posse of two-inch long insects floating in his lane, but was relieved when a man with a net was summoned to skim the insects off the water (above).

"I pointed the bugs out before the race," said England's Liam Tancock. "We had a good laugh about it, but I'd never seen anything like it ever before."  

Other unexpected visitors to the aquatic centre included a flock of pigeons, who are reported to have taken up residence in the rafters where they have built nests.

Adlington was also less than impressed by the transport to and from the athletes' village. Swimmers are renowned as early risers, but even Adlington took umbrage at having to get up at 4am to be sure of making her 8.30am heat at the pool. She said the buses were "unpredictable" and said that the journey took at least three-quarters of an hour.

"Ours got lost this morning so we were sitting there for 50, 55 minutes. The transport isn't running as smoothly as we all thought," she said. "You just have to get up early and get here, even if you are half an hour early. I literally ran through here this morning, swam down and managed to get the 10 o'clock bus back and get an hour's sleep."

On the first day of the games the organisers were forced to abandon the weigh-in for the boxing because of faulty scales. The problems came to light when several competitors were shocked to find they were over the limit, and even more surprised when they returned from some time in the sauna trying to shed the excess weight to discover that they had apparently got even heavier.

That prompted the Australian team to demand a test of the scales, and when a 50kg weight was placed on them the reading came out as 51.4kg.

The weigh-in was immediately cancelled and rearranged for Tuesday. ·