American hurdler Edwin Moses has questioned India’s purpose of hosting marquee events.
India have already hosted events like the Commonwealth Games in 2010. They’ve now submitted an Expression of Interest (EOI) to host the 2030 CWG while also in the running to bid for the 2036 Olympic Games.
“You can put on the Commonwealth Games or any other event and have all the fanfare and the government involved, and people who have nothing to do with sports-but sit on the front row,” Moses told PTI in Madrid. “That’s what you want to avoid. That’s generally what happens.”
“It depends on what the vision is for having a Commonwealth Games. Is it just to have an event in India, or is it to really develop sports? That’s going to be the big question.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist was brutal in pin-pointing that despite being a country with a massive population; India have struggled to produce world-class athletes on a consistent basis.
“There’s a lot of other countries in the world, much smaller, with much less financial capabilities than India, that produce good athletes,” he said. “So, the infrastructure is just not there to support athletes and take Olympic sports seriously.
Furthermore, he also asked if India values any sport other than cricket.
“The question is, is it valuable to the country, other than cricket, which is the big sport there? How much do they value other sports that people may not be familiar with?” he wondered.
“It’s going to depend on the people who have been athletes, who are able to make things happen. That’s for the people in India to determine. “I don’t keep up with the politics of sports over there or what’s gone wrong and why isn’t a country with a billion people better than others in sports, which doesn’t even make sense,” he added.
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