Following on the Chinese Olympian footsteps, India was all set to have its coming out party through New Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games. World was watching a fledgling economy flex its muscle and enter the world stage. And then reality happened. Despite being the most expensive Commonwealth games ever (with a price tag if US$ 13 billion,) the games had everything going wrong. Corruption was rampant (a $2 toilet roll was bought for $80), child labor was repeatedly highlighted by CNN and construction schedule was late by more than a year. A dozen notable athletes refused to participate and 19,000-seater stadiums sometimes had less than 100 audience. Curling in Vancouver Winter Olympics got more audience than that.
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| Is this women's beach volleyball? |
No wonder Wikipedia page on Concerns and controversies over the 2010 Commonwealth Games is more than 10,000 words long. That’s three times the page on Second Sudanese Civil War.
Yet it did not stop Indian Government from claiming the event a success. Country’s media towed the line, hailing the overall event a victory and promptly forgetting about the whole debacle.
Although this was nothing compared to the drama that unfolded in Fiji…
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