Kim Crow is an honours law student and captain of the Australian Rowing Team. She lives in Canberra at the Australian Institute of Sport and will comment regularly for BackPageLead.

Sport has sadly become entwined with terrorist activity. Recent history is littered with examples: Black September terrorist activists left a black stain upon the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. In 2002, the New Zealand cricket team abandoned their tour of Pakistan after a suicide bomb attack outside their hotel.

Last year, six members of the Sri Lankan cricket team were injured in an attack linked to militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, also in Pakistan. Earlier this year, Togo's football team bus was attacked by terrorists during the African Cup of Nations.

Further concerns have surfaced about the safety of the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Delhi, where Australia will be represented by one of largest teams.

At what point does the risk to human life justify ceasing the sporting dream? This question is one that Australia's Commonwealth Games representatives will soon face.

The answer is not a simple matter of risk percentages. It is easy for those outside of the sporting sphere to rationalize sport as a mere game, unworthy of risking life and limb. But such a view undervalues the power of sport to give hope in a world sadly stained with terrorism, poverty and war. When Cameroon won its first Olympic gold medal with victory in the 2000 Olympic soccer tournament, the poverty stricken nation celebrated for days. A national holiday was announced and people danced in the streets. Sport is not merely a game.

But nor should sport be used as a stubborn vessel of proof that the terrorists are not winning. Athletes cannot become immaterial pawns required to forge onward and upward in the face of significant danger.

Despite laudable efforts by Games organizers - Australian hockey players currently competing in Delhi at the Hockey World Cup, for example, report feeling very safe - security cannot be guaranteed in October. Such was the justification for 21-year-old Kiwi striker Simon Child withdrawing from the tournament. His decision was a brave one and must be respected.

Still months away from the Commonwealth Games, sentiment among potential Australian representatives is largely optimistic. Many of them are my neighbours and friends at the AIS in Canberra, and it was interesting to gauge their reaction this week when I asked them about Delhi and the possible security threats they faced.

Swimmer Patrick Murphy, a member of the Dolphins leadership group, said he was unconcerned, citing the outstanding security arrangements in Beijing as indicative of the ability of organizers to segregate athletes from security threats.

Race-walker Nathan Deakes said he was confident the athletes would be well protected. ‘'The Athletes' Village will be a safe environment and I'm confident that Commonwealth Games team members will not be put in any situation where safety is compromised," he said.

But he did note that it was only natural to be apprehensive about an event like his, which took place on open roads. That concern was echoed by dual Olympic medalist and fellow race-walker Jared Tallent and Australian road time trial champion Amber Halliday.

Halliday alone believes that if the threat is high-level enough, the government should be the one to pull the pin.

She might be right.

The sporting tunnel vision of athletes is a curious beast. Our eyes, only on the prize, can distort rational decision making. We are trained in the art of positive thinking. A high jumper will repeatedly visualize clearing the bar and standing on the gold medal dais listening to Advance Australia Fair. We dare not think of failure, in case such thoughts trick our brains into underperformance. Quotes like "reality is the mirror of your thoughts" or "you can do anything you think you can" engender positive thoughts that makes it easy for us to believe nothing bad will ever happen.

Athletes are trained to ignore the uncontrollables and the external factors. Our focus is purely on our performance. When reading about the extent of security arrangements for Delhi, including the use of helicopters above venues to monitor security risks, the thought crossed my mind that it was lucky that rowing isn't in the 2010 Commonwealth Games. My reasoning was nothing to do with the security risks, but the fact that the helicopters would create turbulence on the water, creating difficult conditions for those pulling an oar in the boat.

At times we are reduced to instruction-obeying robots, incapable of autonomous thought. If our coach told us to do star jumps for 24 hours straight we would do it (or at least try!). "Whatever it takes" is our catch-cry.

Typically, high-performance athletes are risk-takers. Even sports that don't involve hurtling head first down an icy slippery dip or performing super-dooper-triple-flip-spin-back-to-front with skis on your feet involve considerable risk. Every athlete, by striving for success, risks failure.

It is in our nature that we will undervalue the degree of risk, irrespective of information source.

But it is also this desire to take risk that means that an overwhelming athlete passion to compete should not be overridden lightly by governments, sporting bodies or managers.

Runner Tamsyn Lewis said her decision would be made ‘'first and foremost in relation to safety being paramount." But she said it would be a terribly hard decision to withdraw: "You train pretty hard for these events so it would be disappointing to not be able to show all that hard work off."

Four-time Canadian Olympian Silken Laumann encapsulates well the sporting desire to risk-take: "Barring hiding under a rock, life is about taking risks, working through change, and having the courage to live your potential. Hiding may not be as painful, but it's not nearly as much fun."

For athletes chosen to represent Australia in Delhi, the chance to compete is a dream, a passion and an honour. It is the culmination of years upon years of blood, sweat and tears. It is an intangible bundle of powerful emotions that shouldn't be stolen lightly. Let the Games go on.