Twenty years after the controversy-ridden Delhi Games, India is set to host the Commonwealth Games again in 2030. They might be the Games that few want, going by the troubled 2022 and 2026 editions and fairly muted response for 2030. But for India, hosting the Commonwealth Games will still be beneficial. On Wednesday, the Commonwealth Sport Executive Board recommended Ahmedabad as a “proposed host” ahead of the Nigerian capital Abuja, the only other city in contention. A formal nod is expected on November 26 during the Commonwealth Sports’ General Assembly.
Purely from a sporting point of view, hosting the CWG can provide a boost to the ecosystem at a time when the performance of Indian athletes across sports is stagnating. Back in 2010, India experienced the “host nation bump” wherein the government’s spending on buying top-quality equipment, hiring reputed foreign experts and sending the teams abroad to train and compete resulted in the best-ever performance at the CWG. India won 101 medals in 2010 and the residual impact of it was seen at the 2012 London Olympics, where India won six medals, the most in a single edition at the time. The Delhi CWG did more — they were a shot in the arm for many Olympic sports that never got such attention and brought to light the heartwarming stories of Indian athletes, such as the Phogats in wrestling, Krishna Poonia in athletics and gymnast Ashish Kumar.
India could not sustain that momentum beyond 2012. And all that remained in the name of the 2010 CWG legacy were countless court cases and investigations that dragged on for years. India can ill-afford a similar mess. The country with aspirations to host the Olympics in 2036 will be judged as much — if not more — on its organisational abilities as for its sporting achievements. The 2030 CWG will give India a chance to rebuild its image and be the sporting destination it so desperately wants to be. But for that, India must learn, not forget, lessons from 2010.
