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  • 5 hours ago
The eyes of the sporting world should be on Victoria as of late, watching the opening of the Commonwealth Games. The state government walked away from hosting the event almost three years ago and now the only sign of the games is a series of half-finished venues and non-existent athlete villages. But for those living in the would-be host cities, those projects are considered a welcome consolation prize.

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00:02On the day the Commonwealth Games should have opened in Victoria, the only point scoring
00:07was being done by politicians.
00:09But while shots are being fired on Spring Street, Morwell's new world class shooting
00:14range is silent.
00:15We're a low profile sport and we're really looking forward to highlighting and profiling
00:20our sport.
00:20The range was one of more than 20 legacy projects totalling $2 billion that were promised in
00:26the wake of the cancellation.
00:27It's just one of three of the promised sporting facilities completed, along with the Shepparton
00:33BMX track and Cresswick mountain bike trails.
00:36One project, a sports complex on the outskirts of Ballarat, is yet to begin, while 13 other
00:42projects announced when the games were scrapped are in various stages of construction.
00:47The Bendigo Bowls Club's upgrade is due for completion in October, a welcome silver lining.
00:52It was a bit devastating for us all about the cancellation.
00:56But then once we realised what the upshot of that was going to be for us, I think we started
01:02to become quite satisfied.
01:04But the same can't be said for the housing developments planned on the four athletes' village sites.
01:09Initial earthworks are underway in Bendigo and Morwell.
01:12But in Ballarat and Geelong, there's no sign of work beginning.
01:17Had all gone to plan, this empty paddock should have been an athletes' village, housing 2,500
01:22of the Commonwealth's greatest sports people.
01:25After the games, it was to be converted to social and low-cost housing as part of Victoria's
01:30big build.
01:31The need for the dwellings remains as desperate as ever.
01:33But, as yet, the site remains untouched.
01:37That's still a bit of an opaque project.
01:40We're not quite sure when that will start coming out of the ground.
01:43But the state government is still committed to all those.
01:45A finish line that won't be crossed until long after July's games are staged in Glasgow,
01:50propped up by $590 million from Victorian taxpayers.
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