THE 2010 COMMONWEALTH GAMES

The 2010 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XIX Commonwealth Games, were held in Delhi, India, from 3 to 14 October 2010. A total of 6,081 athletes from 71 Commonwealth nations and dependencies competed in 21 sports and 272 events. It was the largest international multi-sport event to be staged in Delhi and India, eclipsing the Asian Games in 1951 and 1982.
The opening and closing ceremonies were held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, the main stadium of the event. It was the first time that the Commonwealth Games were held in India and the second time it was held in Asia after Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998. The official mascot of the Games was Shera and the official song of the Games, "Jiyo Utho Bado Jeeto", was composed by celebrated Indian musician A.R. Rahman.

The two principal bids for the 2010 Commonwealth Games were from Delhi, India and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. A ballot of members was held in November 2003 at the Commonwealth Games Federation General Assembly in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Delhi bid won by a margin of 46 votes to 22, confirming India's first successful bid for the Games. The bid was Canada's attempt to hold the games for the fifth time.^[6][7][8] India's bid motto was New Frontiers and Friendships.

India shifted the balance in its favour in the second round of voting with a promise that it would provide US$100,000 to each participating country, along with air tickets, boarding, lodging and transport At the launch of the Queen’s Baton Relay in October 2009, the Business Club of India (BCI) was formed through the partnership of the organising committee, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The BCI was formed to both market the Games and promote Indian business interests internationally.

The initial total budget estimated by the Indian Olympic Association in 2003 for hosting the Games was 1,620 crore (US$351.54 million). In 2010, however, the official total budget soon escalated to an estimated 11,500 crore (US$2.5 billion), a figure which excluded non-sports-related infrastructure development. Business Today magazine estimated that the Games cost 60,000 crore (US$13.02 billion). The 2010 Commonwealth Games are reportedly the most expensive Commonwealth Games ever.

Several concerns were raised over the preparations of the Games and these included excessive budget overruns, likelihood of floods in Delhi due to heavy monsoon rains, infrastructural compromise, poor living conditions at the Commonwealth Games Village, delays in construction of the main Games' venues, the withdrawal of prominent athletes, widespread corruption by officials of the Games' Organizing Committee and possibility of a terrorist attack by militants.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi was criticized by several prominent Indian politicians and social activists. One of the outspoken critics of the Games is Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Indian Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports. In July 2010, he remarked that he would be "unhappy if the Commonwealth Games are successful". On September 23, The Daily Telegraph UK showed photographs taken of child labour working on the Games sites.

Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), an apex Government of India anti-corruption agency, released a report highlighting financial irregularities in up to fourteen Games projects.

Numerous incidents took place a week before the start of the games. Some of those include,
More than a dozen athletes from Australia and England, mainly swimmers, fell ill in the initial days of the swimming competitions. Early suspicions rested on the quality of water in the swimming pools of the SPM Complex, but other competing teams, including South Africa, reported no such illness. Daily water quality tests were being carried out on the water of the pools, as mandated by the event standards. Additional tests were ordered after news of the illnesses, but they also did not find anything amiss. The Australian team's chief doctor, Peter Harcourt, ruled that the "chances of the [Delhi] pool being the cause of the problem is very remote" and praised the hygiene and food quality in the Delhi Games Village. He suggested that it could be a common case of Traveler's diarrhea (locally called Delhi belly), or the Australian swimmers could have contracted the stomach virus during their training camp in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.^[156] Reports of locals filling bottles with tap water, then sealing them and then selling the bottled water as purified water have come out of Delhi. English Olympic and Commonwealth gold-medalist swimmer Rebecca Adlington said that the water quality was absolutely fine.
In another incident, three Ugandan officials were injured when the car they were travelling in hit a security wheel stopper at the Games village. The chairman of the Games Organizing Committee, Suresh Kalmadi, apologized to the Ugandan High Commissioner to India for the freak car accident.
Coming upto the events that was conducted in 2010 CWG.




There were events in 21 disciplines across 17 sports for the 2010 CWG. Some of those events are

• Archery

·         Aquatics

• Athletics
• Badminton
• Boxing
• Cycling
• Gymnastics
• Hockey
• Lawn bowls
• Shooting
• Squash
• Table tennis
• Weightlifting
• Wrestling

Out of these events, Indians marked their step in,

ARCHERY – Deepika won her gold medal in women’s singles.

SHOOTING – Gangan Narang was outstanding.

TABLE TENNIS – Wrestlers all showed their drastic performance.

ATHLETICS – for the first time in discuss throw, 3 Indian women rocked the field.

TENNIS – Sania won silver medal in women’s singles.

HOCKEY – is the event where Indians were thrashed by Australia in finals.

BADMINTON – where Saina Nehwal made the nation proud, winning her first gold medal in CWG.

Nations were ranked first by count of gold medals, then silver medals, then the bronze medals Australia led the medal table with 74 golds, 55 silver & 48 Bronze and a total of 177 medals on the whole. India stood second in the table with the historic record of 38 Golds, 27 Silver and 36 Bronze and a total of 101 medals, thus bowing out England to third place with a difference of a single Gold medal.

The games closed on 14 October 2010 in a colorful closing ceremony featuring both Indian and Scottish performers. The closing ceremony was not as beautnbbiful as the opening ceremony; it marked the end of the Games with a huge celebration with singers from all over India providing a musical retreat which had the whole stadium dancing. The Commonwealth Games flag was handed over to representatives of Glasgow, Scotland, which will host the XX Commonwealth Games in 2014. At the closing ceremony, the President of the Commonwealth Games Federation declared that Delhi had hosted a "truly exceptional Games".

India is largely a single-sport country, with cricket far outstripping all other sports in terms of the talent, sponsorships, spectator support, and media attention it receives. The Indian cricket team is currently (15 October 2010) ranked world number one in Test cricket. India is largely a single-sport country, with cricket far outstripping all other sports in terms of the talent, sponsorships, spectator support, and media attention it receives. The Indian cricket team is currently (15 October 2010) ranked world number one in Test cricket.^[161] There have been worthy world-level contenders in some sports, like Vishwanathan Anand in Chess, or Prakash Padukone and Saina Nehwal in Badminton, but they have been the exception rather than the norm. Hockey was a popular sport till the early 1980s, but a crushing defeat by Pakistan in the finals of the 1982 Asian Games, followed quickly by India winning the 1983 Cricket World Cup, shifted the balance in cricket's favour. One of the important aims of hosting the Commonwealth Games was to build world-class athletics infrastructure within the nation, expose audiences to top-level non-cricket competition, and encourage the youth to "Come out and play".