1982 - Asian Games
1989 - Asian Track and Field Championship
1993 - Badminton World Cup
2000 - Thomas Cup and Uber Cup
2008 - European Tour Golf
2010 - World Cup Hockey
2010 - Commonwealth Games
2012 - SAARC Games
2024 - Olympics ( may be )
Are you able to find any similarity in the list above? All these big events were and will be hosted by India in only one City - New Delhi.
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Besides the above list New Delhi has also hosted many other events like Cycling Championship, World Billiards & Snooker Championship, International Volleyball Championships and many Davis Cup matches. Golf tournaments have also become a regularity in the city now. Lets also not forget that Delhi is the second hub in India after Mumbai.
What does all this details signify?
Is there only one city in India capable of hosting international events in India?
Perhaps no.
Is the love for Delhi of politicians sitting in Delhi?
May be.
IS the easy availability of funds from the center for an event to be hosted in Delhi?
May be.
Or is the attitude that one city is ready and lets host the event here, investment will be less?
Quiet Possible.
or due to callousness of sitting from eternity on their seats as the Chief of various non working sports bodies in India?
Possible.
There is no single reason for hosting of events regularly in Delhi. Its a combination of reasons listed above, there may be others also. But point is big tournaments are meant for development of the city infrastrucutrally and culturally.
Lets first analyze how much delhi has changed since it got the CWG 2010 hosting rights. Construction of flyovers and broadning of existing roads has increased and its been getting completed before time. Metro rail has spread to NCR region covering Noida, Ghaziabad and will soon be entering Gurgaon. City has got swanky line of red and green low floor buses which are slowly replacing killer blue line buses. Power shortage is rare in major areas of Delhi now. New T3 terminal will be inagurated soon. Various cultural events are lined up during the games times.
More than 1 lakh visitors are expected during the games times, they will be like brand ambassadors of their respective nations and will take away what they see here. In case of toursim word of mouth is most powerful form of advertising. Keeping this in mind tours to major tourists like Agra, Jaipur , Shimla , Amritsar are planned by various travel companies. Economy of the hosting city gets boost due to hosting rights. This is just in brief what can happen to a hosting city. I am not mentioning here what benefits sports persons get due to hosting, there are rarely few benefits visible, we only remember the past heroes at the time of baton relays and in most of cases bollywood celebrities are given limelight.
Crux is India should have tried to spread out hosting of events in major cities of India. VEry few events are hosted in cities apart from Delhi. Youth Commonwealth Games in Pune, first and last Afro Asian games in Hyderabad and may be few more of international scale.
Cluster Model for Asian/Commonwealth/Olympics Games:
We should have followed the cluster model just like in industries in hosting events. Delhi in north , Mumbai/Pune or Ahmedabad in west, Hyderabad/Chennai/Banglore in south, Kolkata/Bhubaneshwar in east. This would have atleast spread the infrastructure development to varios regions in India.
Map Showing hosts cities of CWG Games
South Korea has hosted Asian games in its 3 cities Seol(1986), Busan(2002), Incheon(2014). Only Bankok is following the wrong strategy it has hosted Asian Games 4 times in 1962,1970,1978,1998. China is also spreading the cities Beijin hosted asian games in 1990 and Guangzhou will be hosting in 2010, if they wanted they would have easily hosted games in Beijing again and used olympics infrastructure.
Similarly in case of commonwealth games Australia has hosted games in Perth, Sydney, Brisbane. Scotland hosted in Edinburg and Glasgow(2014).
India needs infra development badly it should use such events as a way to develop cities. We dream of hosting olympics by 2020 but we cant event find place other than Delhi for hosting CWG/Asian games in places other than capital. India can start with bidding for 2018 Asian Games.
Specific Cities for Hosting Individual Sports Championships.
Boxing is popular in North East though due to rein of Mr Chautala as Boxing supremo hub is being shifted to Haryana. Internation Boxing events can be held in North East and Haryana to spread the sports here. We have to target regions from where we can get gold medals at olympics. Chances of a boxer from these region getting medals are slighly higher compared to other places.
In same way Hockey events can be hosted in Punjab, Wrestling in UP, Haryana , Punjab, Delhi. Badminton tournaments in Southern part of countires. By following this method we will be developing small clusters for specific games. These places will have better coaching facilities,infrastrucutre and culture for these sports which is most important.
South Korea has hosted Asian games in its 3 cities Seol(1986), Busan(2002), Incheon(2014). Only Bankok is following the wrong strategy it has hosted Asian Games 4 times in 1962,1970,1978,1998. China is also spreading the cities Beijin hosted asian games in 1990 and Guangzhou will be hosting in 2010, if they wanted they would have easily hosted games in Beijing again and used olympics infrastructure.
Similarly in case of commonwealth games Australia has hosted games in Perth, Sydney, Brisbane. Scotland hosted in Edinburg and Glasgow(2014).
India needs infra development badly it should use such events as a way to develop cities. We dream of hosting olympics by 2020 but we cant event find place other than Delhi for hosting CWG/Asian games in places other than capital. India can start with bidding for 2018 Asian Games.
Specific Cities for Hosting Individual Sports Championships.
Boxing is popular in North East though due to rein of Mr Chautala as Boxing supremo hub is being shifted to Haryana. Internation Boxing events can be held in North East and Haryana to spread the sports here. We have to target regions from where we can get gold medals at olympics. Chances of a boxer from these region getting medals are slighly higher compared to other places.
In same way Hockey events can be hosted in Punjab, Wrestling in UP, Haryana , Punjab, Delhi. Badminton tournaments in Southern part of countires. By following this method we will be developing small clusters for specific games. These places will have better coaching facilities,infrastrucutre and culture for these sports which is most important.
I hope it would not be See you in Delhi next time
but
See you in Chennai
See you in Pune
See you in Kolkota .................. next time
3 comments:
and f-1 in hyderabad!
ya but dont you think it is difficult for a developing country to host games in more than one city. There is a danger of failed bid, if e.g we decided to bid for Banglore/ Chennai Asian games. So, it is a safe option in the sense that, since Delhi has the best facilities, we bid from Delhi. I dont see any point bidding from other cities unitl/unless facilities there are bettered or made equal to Delhi.....what say?
bhai delhi has been developed many times, instead of developing one city every time we can easily stage in other cities.
"I dont see any point bidding from other cities unitl/unless facilities there are bettered or made equal to Delhi"
facilities will be made equal only if they host an event else not
why is a danger of failed big so much money has been spent on hosting in delhi same way for other cities it can be spend
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