Sporting delegations from more than 60 Commonwealth nations will converge on the Island later this year to vote on the site of those Games.

Manchester, England -- the only city in the running -- is expected to finally get the sports festival they have so desperately sought since losing two recent Olympic bids.

The city, however, is taking nothing for granted with Mike Dyble, the marketing director for Manchester 2002, visiting Bermuda last month to prepare for the general assembly of Commonwealth officials beginning on October 31.

"I don't think we can afford to be complacent,'' said Dyble in a telephone interview from his Manchester office yesterday.

"If anyone has doubts or uncertainties about Manchester as a city or our facilities or our ability to host the Games or any combination of things they could postpone the decision or not vote in our favour.

"We're treating it very seriously. We have an evaluation committee visiting us next week, three representatives drawn from different countries in the Commonwealth, to come and look at our technical ability to host the Games.

"Our task then is to convince everyone that Manchester can physically handle the Games.

"We will treat the presentation in Bermuda as though there were five other cities bidding.'' Whether Manchester is chosen won't be known until the crucial vote in Bermuda on November 3 at the Southampton Princess.

Several representatives from each country will be here and numerous issues will be tackled regarding constitutional and sporting matters.

Officials from Malaysia are also expected to deliver a report on their own progress as hosts of the 1998 Games.

"It's a very important day for us,'' said Dyble. "I think it is quite an honour for a country to host a congress like that and I think it'll have a lot of spin-off benefits.

"I think Bermuda should be proud of hosting this meeting. What we found in our own bidding is that these events attract a lot of media attention, so first of all it raises the awareness of the city or the country enormously, although I'm not saying Bermuda has to do that.

"Certainly we put Manchester, in awareness terms, on the world map and the amount of publicity we generated, well, no amount of paid for advertising could have done that.

"With 60, 70 different nations travelling to Bermuda, they'll take back images and impressions of the country and that can't do any harm for a nation that depends on tourist industry as part of its economy. A lot of those people are influential and have business interests...you just never know what sparks a country to move its headquarters from one tax haven to another. This will be good exposure for Bermuda.'' But uppermost on Dyble's mind will be making sure Manchester secure the Games.

Clearly in Manchester's favour are brand-new facilities which were originally built to attract the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics. Ready to open is a state-of-the-art cycling velodrome and indoor arena with a seating capacity of 19,000.

Also, a new 60,000-80,000 seat stadium is being constructed north of the city, which will eventually be used for soccer and rugby.

"We must be able to demonstrate to the Commonwealth that we're well on the road, we're in the middle of a very ambitious building programme as a result of our bidding,'' said Dyble.

Also on the agenda, though not of primary concern, will be discussions about the team sports being added for the Malysian Games. Cricket, netball, rugby sevens and hockey will be part of the competition for the first time.

Dyble said that it's possible those sports will not be included in 2002 since they are only being included on an experimental basis.

"We'll talk about how programmes need to move forward in Bermuda, but as far as team sports, well, the feeling throughout the Commonwealth is that this thing has to be tempered...it can't get out of hand. There are a lot of small nations in the Commonwealth, indeed Bermuda is one, that couldn't send a dozen different teams to different events. We'd like to see sports come in, but we don't want to see the programme get too big.'' During his brief stay in Bermuda Dyble was joined by David Dickson, the chief executive of the Commonwealth Games Federation.