Rafa
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Posts posted by Rafa
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and thats final
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Wonderful.
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and Gold Coast as a name just screams multi-sport event. Golden Games, Gold medals, Gold logo.
It also sets a deadline for all the GC transport projects planned.
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the curse! its the curse!
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Won't be complaining about Joao Havelange hosting ceremonies because its capacity is slightly larger than Barcelona's Olympic Stadium. And it should not make perfect sense to hold Olympic ceremonies in a football-only stadium, whether it's larger or smaller than the athletics venue. If there is no ceremonies for Maracana, then the cauldron should not be at Maracana. They sould be reserved for the Engenhao Stadium only. Also, coming up with excuses about this will get us nowhere. If Maracana does host Olympic ceremonies, then a curse will be put on any future Olympic City, especially one who has a football-only stadium and no large multipurpose athletics stadium.
Go away.
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Rio's Mayor will visit Cape Town at the start of the Cape to Rio sailing race, and enter into partnership agreement to co-operate on major events, tourism, security etc. etc Rio has also invited Cape Town's Mayor to the end of the race in Rio.
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i cannot get used to this at all. Sorry, but the Mario Filho Stadium should be rejected and disqualified from hosting Olympic ceremonies and hosting any events in the Summer Paralympics.
There is no rule stating that Olympic ceremonies must be held in the largest football stadium regardless of whether or not it has a track.Get the ceremonies into the athletcs stadium lke Barcelona and Mexico City and there won't be any problems.
go away.
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Jim. Give it a rest. Stop being an idiot. Or at least try.
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Report card time, I suppose.
Preparations: Sure, there's no getting around the fact that the lead-up to them was, in every sense of the word, an utter shambles. A textbook case of how not to prepare for the games. And now right up there with the Melbourne '56 and Athens '04 Olympics as a cautionary tale of why learning the ropes from past organisers, and planning well ahead, and keeping a close tab on progress, is important. But that said, it's not the be-all-and end-all either. Like those earlier Olympics, it soon proved that premature judgments of failure tend to come and bite back. And that wasn't helped by he media hysteria that arose in the weeks leading up which went far beyond the point of being objective and really was starting to get just plain nasty and over-the-top. Legitimate concern about crumbling bridges and the village cleanliness and readiness is one thing - but hoax beat-ups about smuggled bombs and mad scrambles on the orders of Sydney or London-based news desks to find footage, any footage, of stray dogs or beggars or athletes with stomach bugs was definitely crossing the line and turned real discusion of real issues into an orgy of schadenfreude.
Preparation Rating: B minus, Chaotic but no disaster.
Security: In the wash-up, to me what was the biggest concern beforehand, and most had me holding my breath right till the end - security - became a non-issue. Possibly because it was in the Indian Government's hands, rather than Kalmadi's committee, the biggest fears ahead of the games didn't materialise. We'll probably never hear how serious, and close to fruition, an of those security threats came, but I think it's fair to say there were real reasons to be worried. London's gonna face a similar challenge. I'm sure we all hope they succeed as well as India did.
Security rating: A Plus. The very fact we didn't hear anything about it once the games started is a credit to the security planning.
Ceremonies: Okay, here we get into objective territory. And I have to confess I have still to watch the CC (it started midnight here, and I'm at work now. Will have to wait till I get home to watch my recording of it). But I was pleasantly surprised by the OC - definitely more heart-felt and self-deprecating than I expected. VERY derivative, but still enjoyable.
Ceremonies rating: A Minus
Competition/Sports: To me, it was the actual competition that was the true saving grace of the games and lifted them from ho-hum to bloody enjoyable. Okay, I was a little disappointed that England didn't provide as tough a competition as I would have hopd in the loead-up to London, and maybe in cycling the lack of some of the big names from the UK took a bit of gloss off the results (that said, I do think Oz is gonna be competitive again at the London velodrome). But what really got me was how the blue riband events - athletics and swimming - seemed to be overshadowed by the truly "commonwealth" sports that so many people like to sniff at. Nearly every games - Olympic and the rest - produce one sport that "wins" me over, and this time around it was Netball that was the eye-opener for myself. For netball, the CWGs ARE the pinnacle, and the competition lived up to it. Fast, exciting, absorbing and scintillating. I'll never make fun of netball again. But that wasn't the only top-class event. Hockey, Diving, Rugby - all produced competition that was world-and-Olympic class, or not far off it, and some memorable matches. And there's a lot to be said for old rivalries - Oz V England, Scots V England, Aussies V Kiwis - for giving a spark to events. And the athletes seemed to be genuinely motivated and overjoyed to be there. This is one case where the athletes can well and truly take a bow. Well done! And I hope the anticipation of a real Ashes battle for the top of the medal table comes to fruition at Glasgow. The Poms will have no excuses, then.
Sports rating: A Plus
Operations: I suppose this is a bit of a catch-all category, and truth to tell, it was a mixed bag. Yes, crowds early on were a real problem. But just about every major games host in recent years bar Sydney and Vancouver struggled to fill up early and non-finals events. Even Barcelona, from personal recollection, had issues with some near-empty venues, and it didn't stop them being the contender, with Sydney, as the "best" games to date. That said, early attendance in Delhi was dire and I suppose just underlined the lack of Indian sporting enthusiasm and tradition. And really showed they should have moved heaven and earth to have Cricket there. But to be fair, crowds did pick up eventually, even if they only really seemed to "go off" at hockey. Ticketing was the other area, along with the preparations, that seemed to be a total shambles, no getting around that. Nobody ever seems to get ticketing totally right, but nobody has ever really got it as totally wrong as Kalmadi's team did. Those aside, apart from the occasional glitch, as happen at EVERY major games, things went reasonably well.
Operations rating: B. No disaster, again, but plenty of room to improve.
Overall: If I was a Samaranch, I think I'd take the lead of a few posters here already on other threads and label them "memorable". Not perfect (no games are), but not unsuccessful either and they sure surpassed expectations (not that expectations were high) by a mile. In the end these were a very Indian games, and like India, chaotic and at times confronting, but they worked. And ultimately, I'd say they left the CGF with a positive legacy. Certainly in a better state than those of, say, Edinburgh 86.
Rols' Overall Rating: A minus. What can I say? They left me wanting more. If the CWGs can achieve that, they came out ahead.
Highly inflated scores.
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and thats final
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The Games verdict will have to wait but they have passed and in many cases only just.
We need to rebuild games, says Fennell
Paul Mulvey
October 14, 2010 - 9:09PM AAP
The Commonwealth has some of the best athletes in the world.
It's just a shame they didn't come to the Commonwealth Games.
Getting them to future Games is the key to the event's viability.
Advertisement: Story continues below <iframe id="dcAd-1-4" src="http://ad-apac.doubleclick.net/adi/onl.smh.news/news/breakingnewssport;cat1=sport;cat=breakingnewssport;ctype=article;pos=3;sz=300x250;tile=4;ord=8.7240261E7?" width='300' height='250' scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0"> </iframe> It's a task the Commonwealth Games Federation knows is daunting and the ruling body even admits it needs to rebuild the image of its Games.
"It's a challenge. We have to ensure that we attract the best athletes," CGF president Mike Fennell said on the last day of the Delhi Games.
"The month of October, for the sport of athletics is not a good month, that was one of the elements which caused a lot of the big names not to be here.
"We have to look at the timing. Other competitors were turned off by the negative reports over security and other things. We have to project the product in a positive way.
"It's important to attract the best athletes and impress on them that it's important for their careers. We have to rebuild the brand ahead of Glasgow in 2014."
The Glasgow Games are being held in late July, a better time of the season for athletes, but a potential clash with the European athletics championships.
But Glasgow organisers have already been working with international sporting bodies to minimise clashes and potential withdrawals.
"We are at a different time of year, you can't underestimate the importance of that," Glasgow 2014 chief John Scott said.
Glasgow could present the future, as urged by Australian Commonwealth Games Association chief Perry Crosswhite who says the Games should scale down.
"I think you've probably got to look at whether the Commonwealth Games should be that big and whether it should have a huge opening ceremony," Crosswhite said during the Delhi Games.
From Delhi, a city of 17 million, the Games are handed over to Glasgow's 500,000 people.
The only two bids for the 2018 Games come from Gold Coast, also with a population of 500,000, and the Sri Lankan port town of Hambantota, population15,000.
From a main stadium in Melbourne in 2006 with a capacity of 100,000, Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium held 60,000, while Glasgow's Hampden Park will hold 46,000.
The Gold Coast bid will use Carrara Stadium with a capacity of 40,000.
"We think the future is pretty solid and the interest that's been shown by all the countries will continue to demonstrate the Commonwealth Games has a fixed place on the calendar of sports for the future," Fennell said.
But there seems to be a lack of interest, or variety, in bidding for the Games.
Gold Coast bid for the 2018 Games when the ACGA became concerned that it appeared the chaotic Nigerian capital Abuja was the only bid, until the Africans pulled out and Hambantota put in its unlikely application.
Delhi is only the third host city in 19 Commonwealth Games outside the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Manchester in 2002, Melbourne 2006 and Glasgow 2014 are pretty much the same Games with a different accent.
Despite the controversies Delhi had in staging the Games, at least India gave them some personality, so perhaps it's time to send them more regularly to the developing countries which make up the vast majority of Commonwealth nations.
Whether they have the capacity to stage the Games and attract the best athletes would be a thorny issue.
South Africa has shown it can host World Cup soccer and World Cup rugby tournaments, so let's see a Cape Town Commonwealth Games.
Or perhaps, Hambantota.
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^^ No, Rio will just be like Montreal: a bad Summer Olympic city if athletics and ceremonies are not concentrated on the same site.
give it a rest. go away.
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Not choosing sports is VERY important. It provides logical continuity, with athletes being able to defend their win from the previous games etc. It also enables the Commonwealth Games to logically grow, starting with like 18 sports then growing in future, perhaps to the scale of the Olympics when ready.
Naturally, this will only be in the number of sports, the capacities of venues should be within the region that most bid cities could make.
I'd probably scrap Cricket and Equestrian for the meantime, but who knows? It's possible.
So let the 2018 edition be the last of the classic Commonwealth Games, the 2022 will be radically changed with a dedicated sports lineup that any bid city must propose to the best of their ability. The use of small capacity venues will be considered, especially for cities in which the sports are not so popular. A smaller sized main venue should be offered by the CGF. The use of temporary venues will be looked favorably upon, especially for unpopular sports or where an existing indoor venue is unavailable.
But small capacity venues are already given consideration. And in cases where capacity is below a requirement, the CWG Fed usually makes concessions...right? How much smaller should venues be? and are there real costs savings? In terms of a new venue, it should meet capacity requirements but I do understand that if there is a slightly smaller venue with capacity just under the requirements, then of course it should be used instead.
One can think of London where Excel could host a ton of sports under one roof.
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With their small staff contingent, I do wonder what sort of money they make.
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On the oversight side its as simple as demanding formally or informally, an ODA, and setting public deadlines for the start and finish of all venues.
The year is 2010, and the very reason one has an ODA has been proven in Delhi. You have 19 disjoint authorities delivering projects with different objectives and a total lack of communication.
London perhaps represents an over-achiever in the formation of an ODA, but its not unachievable in other countries or cities.
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Very simple. Use the publicity to ask...which cities can do better?
Award 2018 to Gold Coast and open the process for 2022 and 2026 simultaneously.
i.e. make a visit to South Africa, Canada, Australia, England, and others even KL, and talk to the OC's and presidents.
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sandy track. Abuja could do better
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That guys used a giant pool scoop and what he picked up was either a gigantic moth or a debris. I watched it live.
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debris in the pool?
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How can it not trump London's?
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where are the people?
FIFA WC USA-Mexico-Canada 2026
in FIFA World Cup / Bids
Posted
Cape Town 2026. The World Cup in one city.