Extensive Security Is Planned for the Commonwealth Games

Two hundred private security guards will protect athletes at this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, organizers announced.

Sir John Orr, chairman of the Games’ support services, said a 500,000-pound ($684,000) contract--the largest ever for a British sporting event--had been awarded to a private security firm to assist the expected 3,000 athletes from 60 countries.

Security officials, he said, will patrol the perimeter of the Games village based at Edinburgh University, where a sophisticated closed-circuit TV monitor would be installed.

Monitors also would be set up at Meadowbank Stadium, the main athletics arena for the Games, while a metal-detecting system, similar to that used at international airports, would operate at several other venues.

Detailing security arrangements, Orr said, “What you have to bear in mind is that it is a sporting event and we hope to keep security to an acceptable level.”

Organizers are anxious to avoid the sort of angry confrontation that Orr said sometimes occurred between athletes and security officials at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.