Work began in late April at the Stadium site in East Manchester, with Alfred McAlpine Civil Engineering moving on site to begin preparatory groundworks. Work on the Stadium itself, for which the planning application was submitted at the end of May, should start later in the year.
The 48,000 seater stadium will be the centrepiece of Sportcity, which will become one of, if not the most, significant sports facility complexes in the country. The key focus for the Sportcity development will be the sports facilities which will serve to stimulate the regeneration of the Eastlands site and wider East Manchester area. The other sports facilities will comprise the UK Sports Institute, which will be the hub of the UKSI North West and an ITI Tennis Centre. The Velodrome completes the range of sports facilities within Sportcity.
The provisional programme for the Games, which will be held over ten days from July 25 to August 4 2002, has now been proposed by the organising committee, ready for approval by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth Games Federation in October.
Three team sports and 14 individual events are planned as follows
Team events – netball, rugby sevens and hockey. Individual events
Aquatics, Gymnastics, Table tennis, Athletics, Judo, Triathlon, Badminton, Bowls, Weightlifting, Boxing, Shooting, Wrestling, Cycling, Squash
Manchester has also decided to include sports for disabled athletes, honouring the spirit of the decision made by the CGF to include events for disabled athletes from 2006. Eight events will be selected from a list of 12 recently agreed with the International Paralympic Committee for disabled athletes.
Participants in the Games will be housed at an athletes village at Manchester University’s Fallowfield campus. It has a capacity of 4,850, although there may be potential to include additional accommodation nearby for officials . A second village for participants in the shooting competition at Bisley will hold approximately 400 competitors and officials, bringing the total to 5,250. This compares with 5,065 at the Kuala Lumpur Games in 1998.
Sir Rodney Walker has accepted the post of chairman of Manchester 2002 Ltd, the subsidiary company charged with delivering the Games. He will also be vice chairman of Manchester Commonwealth Games Ltd. The former Rugby League forward and Yorkshire shot-put champion is chairman of the UK Sports Council and since October 1998 has chaired the Financial and Business Review Committee for the Games