Weightlifters Tracey Lambrechs and David Liti, along with coach Tina Ball, were the first team members to arrive at New Zealand Team HQ in the athlete’s village today.
Greeted with a powerful haka on arrival Tracey was impressed with the village in general, especially the New Zealand set up.
“The whole village is so bright and colourful!” she said.
“We were right down the end of the road, looked up and saw the NZ sign from a distance. It was so exciting – it stands out by far, this could be one of the best kiwi set ups I have seen.”
Chef de Mission Rob Waddell and an advance team of support staff have been prepping the New Zealand area for a week now and believe they are 100% ready for the athletes to move in.
“We are really excited to welcome our first athletes into the village,” he said.
“We have put a lot of work into this first week to make sure everything is up, running and going well and it was very rewarding for us to see the athletes’ reaction and how pleased they are to now be part of it,”
“The Gold Coast Organizing Committee have done an outstanding job, there’s nothing to complain about. We obviously do our own set up to make sure we are ready to go but they have put some amazing work into getting the village into outstanding shape.”
The next athletes to arrive today are the Basketball and Shooting teams.
The Commonwealth Games begin with the Opening Ceremony on the 4th of April and continue through to the 15th.