Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010: Is it a miracle? Indeed, it is for India
New Delhi – after more than half of the Delhi CWG event was over, India finally seemed getting control of the things as according to Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman organizing committee, all the complaints from athletes, officials and spectators had been rectified
in a professional way. For India, who had won the hosting for the event by bagging 46 votes against the 22 for Canada earlier in 2003, the event had proved to be a constant nightmare. As it had only brought allegations of corruption, mismanagement, nepotism,
procrastination and non-professionalism for the country. However, according to the official, throughout the event, they succeeded in taking control of the issues as soon as they arose, and for them, it was not less than a miracle.
The problems during the Delhi Commonwealth Games started surfacing right from the first day of the event when it was realized that the running track at Jawaharlal Nehru stadium had been severely damaged amid the opening ceremony gala. Later on, issues like
transportation of the athletes and officials, catering, empty stadiums, dengue outbreaks, poor quality food and contaminated water at swimming pools were figured out by the media. Besides all such incidents, the indifferent attitude on part of authorities
and their denial for accepting the prevalence of the problems had resulted in annoying the local and international spectators as well as the media personnel.
A positive role, from Indian point of view, had been of the president of the Commonwealth Games Mr. Michael Fennell. Fennel had been reported defending the organizing committee and the Delhi administration at every step. First, while addressing the issues
of delay in the construction, the president came up with the view that everything was being done rather professionally and at such times, instead of coughing up the venom, the world must appreciate that a developing country had taken up the initiative of organizing
a large sport event. This would help build a positive image around the globe and would also extend a major support in boosting the healthy activities of sports among its society members.
Later on, when the management issues lingered, the guy came up with the statement that while organizing such a large event, even if you had a team of most professional organizers, issues were bound to arise. When the problems like empty stadiums, contaminated
water in the pools and illness of most of the swimmers made their way to the media, Fennel completely denied the matters, but when the world media persisted upon the issues, he said that he was concerned with the problems and had placed right people to fix
them.
However, for Indians, as they claimed it, it had been not less than a miracle that they had succeeded in taking control of the issues well on time; however, the display of sheer mismanagement on their part had made rest of the world lose its interest in
the whole event. Not only the organizing committee, Delhi administration and Commonwealth Games Federation observed making desperate efforts for filling in the empty stadiums, in which it failed miserably, but the channels covering the event live, were also
reported to have stagnant ratings worldwide. The issue not only kept the potential sponsors away from making any reasonable offer to the organizers, it also lowered the chances of India getting a chance to host such a large sport event in the future.
While remonstrating at the organization of the event, the correspondent of an independent media channel said that if India still had the nerve to call its management “miraculous”, we must change the meaning of the word. He further said that the only plus
point which had made its ground during the event was that the negligence at part of India in organizing the event would serve to be a lesson for the Commonwealth member countries as well as for the Commonwealth Games Federation that in future, make their choices
strictly on the merit basis. While concluding his remarks he said that, instead of India, had the event been organized at Toronto, this could have been a real fun for the spectators around the globe.
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