CHENNAI: The buzz around the 2030 Commonwealth Games is slowly picking up.The evaluation of India's preparedness has already kicked in even though they were awarded the right to host the Games only in November. A five-member delegation of the Commonwealth Sport (CS) visited Amdavad (Ahmedabad) to inspect the condition at the venues.
CS Chief Executive Officer Katie Sadleir, who had fruitful discussions with all stakeholders – the Gujarat state government, central government, the Indian Olympic Association and host city officials — said the visit was fruitful. She was impressed with the existing facilities and is sure India would deliver a ‘wow Games’. Hours before leaving for Birmingham for the 100-day countdown for the 2026 CWG, she spoke with this daily about India’s preparedness. She is expecting the organizing committee to be formed as early as possible (after the elections) and said there would be at least a couple of traditional sports with the sports programme to be finalized by the end of this year. Excerpts:
How was your visit to Amdavad? How did the discussions go?
It was really good. This was my fourth trip to India and my second to Amdavad but the first after the announcement (of hosting the 2030 Commonwealth Games) in November at our General Assembly. We had some really good meetings with the government at the city level. We are really impressed with some of the stuff that had happened ever since the General Assembly which was in November. We got to have a look around some of the proposed facilities and there are some world-class facilities. It's just going to wow people, in terms of the facilities that are both currently there and the ones that are planned. So yeah we were very, very impressed.
You have visited almost all the facilities. In terms of percentage, how much progress have been made?
There are two things. One of the things that we have been working on from Commonwealth Sport’s perspective over the last two years, in particular since Victoria pulled out, was what we call a Commonwealth Games reset where we have a commitment at a Commonwealth Sport level to take the Commonwealth Games around the Commonwealth. What has been happening is that the Games tend to bounce back-and-forth between Australia and the UK; and a couple of others every now and then. However, in terms of a product that countries felt that they could afford and deliver there was few and far between who would put up their hands up for the bid. What we did is we went and looked at the product in Birmingham and said, “how do we actually bring this down to be something that is affordable”?
And one of the significant elements that we wanted to try and take 60% out of the cost of the Birmingham Games and one principle behind that was that we did not expect people to be building new facilities to host the Commonwealth Games. If there were plans already in place, if a country or a city didn't have a stadium and that they wanted one or to upgrade their stadium and have an event there, Games would help with the momentum to further that along then that's fine. It wouldn't be considered a cost to the Games because we were looking to choose sports that meet the facilities that you currently have. So when the bid came from India, it was very much based on using existing facilities. Some of those facilities are absolutely smacking brand new. Others of them have been around for a while and there will be some layovers. They might need temporary stands built and maybe a fresh coat of paint. The facilities are absolutely suitable. When we were there in the last two-three days — a delegation of four of us (including the CS president Donald Rukare, Darren Hall, Director of Games & Assurance and Ann-Louise Morgan, director sports). We also brought a consultant who specialises in working with international sports federations and making sure that facilities meet standards.
We had meetings with ministers and government officials, but those were really intensive three days of looking at facilities with lots of them being multi-sport potential. We looked at large convention centres that could be turned into four or five different sporting venues as options. What I can say is that the facilities that are there right now are fantastic brand new ones while some are not but have the absolute potential to do what we need for the Commonwealth Games. Obviously, everyone knows that India has a vision for an Olympic Games. So they have kind of a Plan A and a Plan B.
Rebranding CWG and CS?
I guess there are two things. Obviously, we are trying to — as part of our Commonwealth United, which is a 10-year strategy we signed three years ago — to lift the profile and connecting with the youth. We have used the brand with the celebration device, those three Vs (Venue, Vibe and Visitors) for Birmingham under the term Commonwealth Sport. We only agreed that we would officially change our name from the Commonwealth Games Federation to Commonwealth Sport at the last General Assembly, because we believe that we are about more than just the Games. We have a philosophy that sport is just the beginning. We run a whole bunch of development programmes with our members around the world, aimed at getting more young people involved in sport, developing leaders. We have a big programme called GAPS, which is about working with… inclusive aspirations when bringing more and more people with disabilities into sport. I go back to the comments about the reset.
It is also about the Games, in particular, how we would make that more attractive for potential hosts. It's worked because we know we came out of a really tricky period when Victoria pulled out of the Commonwealth Games, and I was the CEO at that time, it wasn't a great day. We moved quickly to secure Glasgow as a stepping stone to the Games and its future. We are really excited about what will happen in Glasgow. We went to the market for expressions of interest for 2034 and 2030 and got five countries put forward and it was quite a change. All of a sudden there’s a change, including obviously India and Nigeria, two of our largest members. The way we have run the expressions of interest or what we call the pipeline process is we try to tell people if they are not successful to stay with us and work with us on the next Games. When we open up the pipeline process again for 2034, we know we have between three and five countries that are waiting for that to happen.
This shows you that some of the key principles and things that we change have been attractive to potential hosts. We're quite excited about that. India is going to be an absolutely fabulous Games because it's not just about hosting the 2030 Games, it's also our 100 year celebration.
The CS and all stakeholders are yet to shortlist a number of sports. Around 16-17 sports are expected to be part of the roster. Won’t it be too late if announced in 2027? There would be at least two traditional sports that might not have resonance across Commonwealth countries. Are you under pressure to include them?
It will not but I am personally of the belief that we will announce the sports before the end of this year. I mean we are working very closely with the Indian Olympic Association, Commonwealth sport members and the government on what their aspirations are. We have been working with the International Federations (IFs) who are interested in being part of the Games and getting them to put together a business case for consideration to the hosts so that there's much more dialogue with the Ifs and they needed to be able to put forward, I guess a business case that says why 'X' sport should be considered and what would happen within India over that period of time to develop that sport or enhance that sport and what is the makeup of the Commonwealth community that participates in that sport. It's kind of a very interactive approach much more than we've done before. It will really be an exciting programme and it will have a mixture of sports that people will expect to be on the programme. We are looking forward to seeing a couple of traditional sports as well.
It's part of our philosophy actually to support the hosts. The host is supporting the Commonwealth and we're supporting the host and their sports that may be traditional sports, and they may not have a huge Commonwealth participation and yet, but being part of a Commonwealth Games actually launches it to be something because of if there is a sport that is selected, then there will be a lot of work to ensure that the Commonwealth-wide can participate in it. But no pressure, I think that recognising the importance of traditional sports is very important
And what about the organising committee that’s yet to be formed? Are you comfortable communicating with all stakeholders separately?
The organising committee is in the process of being established. Obviously, we have arrived at a point in time with lots of elections about to happen or are going on. That will impact some of the membership of the organizing committee. At this stage what we have are the four stakeholder groups that signed the host collaboration agreement — the national government, the state of Gujarat, ourselves and the IOA. We are in touch regularly through a variety of means and projects. It wouldn't be great if the organising committee was not established before Glasgow, but they are well on their way to establish. There's great progress that's going on behind scenes.
There's nothing more pleasure than coming to a country that embraces sport. I have been fortunate to listen to your Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) who is passionate about sport and sports minister talk about the benefits of sport to develop communities, nations and individuals and that is really exciting.