India’s £300m Commonwealth Games dress rehearsal for 2036 Olympics
The next Commonwealth Games in Amdavad will have a budget double the size of Glasgow’s in what will be seen as a dress rehearsal for an Olympic Games in India.
The largest city in Gujarat, also known as Ahmedabad, will host the next edition of the Games, which nearly went under when Durban and Victoria pulled out of hosting successive Commonwealths, leaving Birmingham and Glasgow to step in.
Glasgow’s slimmed-down Games, which concluded on Sunday, had a budget of £150m, around half of the £300m which has been set aside for the 2030 centenary edition in the north west of India.
It is no secret that India, with the backing of the mega-wealthy Ambani family – co-owners of the MI London Hundred cricket franchise – is looking to stage the Olympic Games for the first time, having never bid for the quadrennial extravaganza.
Olympics in India?
India has developed a bid for the 2036 Games, to be staged in Ahmedabad like the Commonwealth Games, alongside submissions from South Africa, Qatar, Istanbul and Chile. There are other potential bids likely from nations including Egypt, South Korea, Saudi Arabia.
And the Commonwealth Games will be seen as a dress rehearsal for India, allowing it to show off its ability to host a major multi-sport tournament and fill huge venues – including the 132,000-capacity Narendra Modi Stadium
The doubling in budget was expected, with India likely to want to see the inclusion of sports in which they traditionally excel – such as field hockey, wrestling, archery, shooting and squash – which were taken off the roster for the smaller Glasgow Games.
There have also been reports that sports growing in popularity in India, such as 3×3 basketball, cycling and rugby sevens, could return to the programme, while India has the right to add two regional or specialist sports into the programme – with kabaddi the likely favoured sport in this category.