CAC Games 2006

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In the case of the 20th CAC Games, there was an abundance of personnel. Thee were times when it was felt that the volunteers were too numerous.
It seemed that all of Cartagena had been involved in the preparation for the Games. Everyone in Cartagena knew they were coming and wanted to be involved. In several instances whole families volunteered their time.
The Government closed schools and universities thereby availing the organisers of significantly larger numbers eager to be trained and serve as volunteers.
At the leadership level, the organising committee did attain the right mix and the Games were adequately serviced by an abundance of eager personnel.
But large numbers of volunteers with all their eagerness at the disposal of participating teams are not enough to guarantee success. That was a major problem in Cartagena.
Of course there were problems in some quarters as in a largely Spanish-speaking country, with more than half the membership of CACSO being English-speaking, English was hard to come by in sufficient quantity.
Teams complained of the unavailability of adequate numbers of translators to allow them to make sense of their involvement in the Games. There were difficulties at the Technical Meetings, at the competition venues and at the medical centres at competitions.
The announcement at the various competitions left much to be desired with the English-speaking participants hung
ering for information and having great difficulty accessing it.
Despite repeated commitments to offer better translation service, the organising committee often came up short.
The various delegations eventually resigned themselves to the fact that they were in a Spanish-speaking country and made do with whatever was provided.

Sporting Environment
From the standpoint of crowd participation the 20th CAC Games were a resounding success.
The Government approved free entry to all of the events.
Everywhere there were extremely long lines of very patient people waiting to gain entry.