GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) — Organisers of the Pan American Games in Mexico say security will not be a problem, but finishing some venues on time might be.

The games will be Mexico’s biggest attempt at organising a major international sporting event since the football World Cup in 1986. Officials say they have surpassed the 2007 Rio de Janeiro Pan American Games record for generating sponsorship, and estimates suggest the games will generate a windfall of US$2.7 billion with around one million visitors expected.

This should provide relief from the daily reports of mass graves, killing and kidnappings in a country that has been racked by drug violence that has killed more than 35,000 since late 2006.

However, the economic benefits may hinge on the security situation when the quadrennial, multi-sport event opens October 14.

In February, grenade attacks at the entrance of a nightclub killed six and rocked a city already shaken from a night of chaos on February 1 when suspected drug gangs commandeered cars and buses, set them on fire and used them to block highways. Grenades were thrown at police stations as panic swept the city.

Although there have been no headline-grabbing incidents since then, a return to the violence could cause visitors to stay away from Mexico’s second city.

Organisers have pledged that security is a top priority, and they are pumping US$10 million into a plan that calls for 10,000 municipal, state and federal police, as well as elements from the Mexican army and navy, patrolling Guadalajara’s streets during the games.

Away from the concerns over security, the most glaring problem is visible at the modest 8,500-seat stadium for athletics. The first events will be run there in exactly four months. The main stand is taking shape, but construction on the track has yet to begin and dirt roads provide the only access to the venue.

“It is going well,” one of the workers, Mario Ponce, said a few days ago, labouring in 33-degree heat (92F). “We are working from 8 in the morning to 6 — and on the weekends too. It’ll be ready.”

Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, governor of the state of Jalisco where the games are being staged, says construction on new facilities is 90-95 per cent complete. But the statistic hides another reality. Last-minute changes to the location of both the track and field venue and the athletes’ village — known as the Pan American Villa — have planners scrambling to ready key facilities in a city famous for tequila and mariachi.

“The organising committee says everything will be ready in time, but it (the stadium) is only 40 per cent constructed,” Antonio Lozano, president of the Mexican Athletics Federation, told the sports daily Record earlier this month.

The stadium is a drastically scaled down version of an eye-catching original plan to build a 15,000-capacity stadium overlooking one of Guadalajara’s natural beauty spots, the Huentitan Canyon.

A similar rush is on to finish the athletes’ village, which will house 6,000 participants.

Situated outside the city’s beltway, a long way from the majority of venues and 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) from the centre of the host city, the buildings are taking shape. However, the complex has been at the centre of a legal battle that has the potential to cause a major disruption.

A municipal court on May 4 ordered construction on the complex halted after local residents of a private housing estate, Rancho Contento, complained that the complex could wreck an ecologically fragile zone and that environmental laws had been broken.

Later the same day, a federal injunction was granted for construction to continue.

Without further legal problems, the Pan American Villa is expected to be finished within two months, leaving around 60 days to install high-tech equipment and security systems, and deal with a host of logistical issues. All of this comes at the peak of the rainy season when fierce tropical storms are almost a daily afternoon occurrence.

The original plan was to construct the athletes village in the center of Guadalajara as part of a rejuvenation project for a rundown part of the city, but these plans fell apart because of political infighting.

Ricardo Flete, director of Social Development Studies at the University of Guadalajara, said failing to build the athletes village at the heart of the city is a missed opportunity to use the games to help Guadalajara’s poor and working class.

“In Guadalajara, there are no social programs to complement the sporting and economic ones,” Flete said. “The project is widely perceived as one for the wealthy.”