With the Commonwealth Games finished in India, everything came off much better than many were expecting. However, India isn’t getting the public relations boost they were hoping for when the won the rights to host the Commonwealth Games back in 2003.
Much of the work was finished at the last minute and there was a great deal of negative press about whether or not the infrastructure would be complete. Several top athletes decided not to come after the widely reported concern about the filthy living quarters and there weren’t nearly the number of tourists as they were expecting.
In the end, most of the events went smoothly. The venues and infrastructure was completed and the sanitary conditions sound like they were resolved. There was a a problem with the computer system that handled tickets and several events had a lack of spectators while being listed as “sold out”.
Unfortunately the lack of preparation made front page news, while the last minute sprint to get everything done didn’t get nearly the same amount of publicity. Overall, it will probably help India’s reputation. There were no major catastrophes at the actual event, so they were able to pull everything off successfully. The negative PR probably isn’t going to help India get the Olympics anytime soon, but the experience of working under a global spotlight along with the infrastructure that was put in place will probably help them move closer to that goal.
