After averting the ultimate embarrassment of having to delay the start of athletics competition because of a damaged track, organizers of the Commonwealth Games were dealing with a transit driver boycott yesterday.

Competition started precisely on time in the track and field events yesterday, to the surprise of some commentators. Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards, who saw the condition of the track and the infield on the eve of the first events, had described it as "beyond anything that I imagined."

A last-minute rush to fix and clean sections of the track and relay turf in the infield — caused by vehicle and human traffic during Sunday's spectacular opening ceremony — got the stadium in good enough shape for the international track federation to approve it for competition hours before athletes were set to race.

England's Mark Lewis-Francis won the first heat in a men's 100-meter field missing the Commonwealth's biggest star Usain Bolt, shortly after the competition kicked off with the women's parasports shot put.

Uganda's Moses Ndiema Kipsiro won the first gold medal of the track program, holding off Kenya's Olympic silver medalist Eliud Kipchoge to finish in 13 minutes, 31.25 seconds.

However, with one problem solved, another took its place.

Press Trust of India reported that 800 bus drivers had stopped turning up for Commonwealth Games duties because of long working hours and heavy security, but organizers were bringing in more than 900 local drivers to replace them. The bad news is, there's no time for training. On the upside, most are local school bus drivers who are not busy because school and college students are on vacation.

The driver boycott wasn't among the problems Commonwealth Games Federation president Mike Fennell and local organizing committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi addressed at a news conference yesterday, where Fennell assured that "all systems are go" for the track and field competition.

Kalmadi, asked why most stadiums were almost empty on the third day of competition, said an additional 50,000 tickets had been sold Tuesday.

He'd earlier said organizers might have to give away tickets for free to children and low-income people to fill the venues.

Another technical glitch which upset some boxers at the weigh-in was fixed, with Kalmadi saying faulty scales had been checked, and "all 10 were found to be OK."

World record holder Gagan Narang has been on target at the shooting range to help shift some of the spotlight to sports. After helping India claim its first gold of the games on Tuesday, he shot a perfect 600 in qualifying for the 10-meter Air Rifle and then set a games record 103.6 points in the final round to win his second New Delhi gold — at the expense of compatriot and Beijing Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra. That was gold medal No. 6 for India, keeping the hosts in second place on the table. Indian shooters collected two of the other three gold medals on offer at the range yesterday.

Australia leads the way. Its cyclists collected the first three gold medals at the velodrome before Malaysia's Josiah Ng won a dramatic men's keirin race to end a run of six wins for the Aussies in two days of competition.

Another Malaysian, Azizul Hasni Awang, crossed first in the keirin but was relegated to last place for aggressive riding.

Teenager Megan Dunn produced an upset win over world champion Tara Whitten of Canada to win the women's points race for Australia, which also won the women's team sprint and the 40-kilometer points race for men.

The Australian swimmers won six of the nine gold medals in the evening pool program, including both 4x200-meter relays.

Alicia Coutts collected her second gold medal in two days by winning the women's 100 freestyle, and teammate Leisel Jones led an Australian sweep of the medals in the 200 breaststroke.

Jason Dunford, a U.S.-based swimmer, won Kenya's first gold of the games in the 50-meter butterfly, holding off returning veteran Geoff Huegill of Australia and former world record holder Roland Schoeman of South Africa.

England's James Goddard won the 200 backstroke, South African Cameron van der Burgh won the 100 breaststroke, and Australia's Matthew Cowdrey improved his own world record in the Paralympic 50 S9 category, winning in 25.33 seconds.

The Commonwealth Games — an Olympic-style competition held every four years — bring together more than 6,000 athletes and officials from 71 countries and territories. India wanted the games, which ended up costing between $3 billion and $10 billion, to showcase its emergence as a growing economic power and possibly attract a future Olympics.

But construction delays, corruption allegations, concerns about security and heavy monsoons put preparations for the games way behind schedule, with complaints about unfinished and filthy accommodations in the athletes' village embarrassing the hosts.

Fennell admitted that all the negative attention hurt.

"I think that a lot of the adverse publicity leading up to the games has turned off some people, there is no question about that," Fennell said. "You can't hide that. We need to rebuild it so the games can be successful."