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Hambantota 2018


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Am I the only one who's dying to see how the voting round would turn out to be? :P How many mambers does the CWG governing body have?

:) Go to the Commonwealth Games Federation website, all will be explained. :)

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A few more details emerging ....

Coast versus President's boy for Games

SRI Lanka seems set to mount a serious challenge to the Gold Coast's Commonwealth Games hopes after the President's son was revealed as the driving force behind the rival bid.

The surprise announcement that Hambantota would vie for the 2018 Games was met with scepticism in some quarters and even suggestions it was a tourism or political stunt.

The town has only about 15,000 residents, is still recovering from the 2004 tsunami and the country is emerging from a decades-old civil war that has raised human rights issues.

But the involvement of Namal Rajapaksa, son of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, elevates the legitimacy of the bid.

Government media has identified Namal as the man behind the Hambantota push and he has already has been touted as a possible future president when his father plans to retire in 2016.

Namal is a candidate in April 8 elections and it is believed a successful Games bid would ensure his political longevity and popularity.

Media reports have questioned the motives of the Rajapaksa family, with newspapers including The Times of London claiming the family have control of up to 70 per cent of the national budget.

The President heads four ministries and his brothers Gotabaya, Basil and Chamal also head ministries.

Editor-in-chief of the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily News, Jayatilleke de Silva, said there was a belief that there would be adequate infrastructure in Hambantota by 2018 to host the Games, also sought by the Coast.

Mr de Silva said he believed the current government would win this week's election and would act responsibly for the people in relation to the bid.

He thought the Commonwealth Games would be handled by the Sports and Tourism Ministry and said Namal 'may not be involved' if he was elected.

He was reluctant to comment further about Namal.

Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke said he was surprised by the bid from Hambantota but said the Gold Coast community shouldn't believe it had it in the bag as the Commonwealth Games were seen a tool to help with economic development.

But he said he found it hard to imagine a city of 15,000 people being able to accommodate an influx of people who would converge on the city.

"They could be tough opponents even though it must be hard to imagine they have the accommodation necessary or have the facilities," said Mr Clarke.

"I think they've been relying on other countries to make donations.

"Probably what I have the biggest doubts about is whether they will use those facilities in the future."

Gold Coast Bulletin

I like how Ron Clarke struggles to juggle being diplomatic and realistic.

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:rolleyes: You gotta have a wee chuckle though...

But hey if Hambantackuwaa is being used as a lane filler to create a race, let it! And anyway it puts Sri Lanka up for future bids. This would be a creat catalyst for a nation struggling to rebuild after a long and bitter civil war in the north and recovery from the devestating Tsunami.

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  • 2 months later...

Well, fort what it's worth, their websites up:

http://www.hambantota2018.com/

I'll give them this much ... not too bad looking a site. Better designed than that dog's breakfast Abuja served up for 2014. Still, more a glossy tourism and investment brochure for Hambantota than much about the bid itself. Am I reading the sports pictograms right in that they're proposing football and table tennis? Nothing else I can find on the site to indicate what sports are proposed, or venue proposals.

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  • 2 months later...
China threat to Gold Coast games

China is looming as an unlikely threat to the Gold Coast's bid for the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Many considered the Gold Coast a certainty for the event when it emerged the only competing bid was from the small southern Sri Lankan city of Hambantota.

It may boast a population of about 11,000 - with 525,000 in the district - but the port city of Hambantota, situated on the shipping route between the Suez Canal and the Malacca Straits, is becoming increasingly strategically important in the region.

The Chinese have invested millions - if not billions - in recent years building infrastructure such as a sea port, and now there are fears the non-Commonwealth country could prove very influential in determining which city hosted the 2018 Games.

Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke said Hambantota posed a serious threat to Queensland's chances.

"China is supporting them and China has got lots of money to build new facilities and they have provided facilities and financial assistance to a lot of Commonwealth countries, particularly in Africa," Cr Clarke said.

"So if they want to call in their charge, then no matter how it appears on the surface, that could have an influence on votes."

The influence of China has also been noted by Gold Coast 2018 bid chief executive Mark Peters, who said he was taking Hambantota's bid very seriously.

"We're respecting their bid - there's always that question about what does that Chinese investment mean for the bid, but no-one has the answers to those questions," he said.

"This is not a lay down misere - you see what's happening in cricket at the moment, where suddenly there are different influences playing out.

"We're in a much more political world than we've ever been."

Mr Peters said 71 nations would cast their votes to determine the successful candidate city, which could play into Sri Lanka's hands.

"The fact is that's their vision is to recreate their country after the civil wars and the tsunami," he said.

"They have a very strong legacy argument that could go over strongly with some of the African and Caribbean countries."

Foreign policy expert Keith Suter said it was plausible China would seek to build on its sphere of influence by offering behind-the-scenes support to the Sri Lankan bid.

But Beijing would be careful not to be seen to work against Australia.

"Ron [Clarke] is right, China is now the single most important investor in Africa, but usually has different sorts of agendas," he said.

"It's not out to make life difficult for the Australians."

However, Dr Suter said China already had a strong relationship with Australia, while its relationship with Sri Lanka needed more work.

"The Sri Lankans would say to the Chinese, 'use your influence where you're investing in order to help ensure our bid when it comes to the vote'," he said.

"The problem is that Australia is already seen to be hosting a lot of sporting events, so Beijing may take the view that the Australians won't mind losing out on the Gold Coast because they get so many other things.

"If the Australian government can counteract that impression by saying to the Chinese that we regard hosting the Commonwealth Games as being very significant indeed and we would regard it as a gross loss of face if we were to lose the bid, then it puts the Chinese in a real dilemma."

Hui Feng, research fellow at the University of Queensland's School of Political Science and International Studies, said Beijing's original intention in Hambantota was to make strategic infrastructure investments.

"It is more likely that the Sri Lankan authorities and the local government would like to further expand the reputation of the town by bidding for the Games by diverting part of the fund from the Chinese investment, and Beijing did not feel compelled to oppose this," he said.

Dr Feng said the investment was part of China's "grand strategy" to establish itself as the major player in Asian and African developing countries.

Dr Suter said the new port in Hambantota was also driven by internal Sri Lankan politics.

"The reason for that is that Trincomalee, which is in the north, is in a Tamil-dominated area, so the Sri Lankan government in Colombo wants to develop this alternative port in case of further problems," he said.

For the Gold Coast, Mr Peters said all the city can do is put in its best bid.

"What influence China has, we don't know and we can't lose sleep over it," he said.

"We just know we can run the Games and they'll be a very good Games in a friendly, safe environment and that's the message we will push."

A decision on the 2018 Commonwealth Games host city will be made on November 11 next year.

Brisbane Times

Well, one easy solution. Send our Mandarin-speaking, Queenslander, former PM and current Foreign Minister to Beijing to sort them out.

Or offer the Chinese Stradbroke Island for a Pacific naval base.

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Well, one easy solution. Send our Mandarin-speaking, Queenslander, former PM and current Foreign Minister to Beijing to sort them out.

<_< woo they'll be really shaking in their boots...

...Or offer the Chinese Stradbroke Island for a Pacific naval base.

<_< Yeah typical...sell your souls to a superpower, been down THAT road before haven't you!

Although still the strongest bid, Suddenly Gold Coast doesn't quite seem a shoe in now does it.

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<_< Yeah typical...sell your souls to a superpower, been down THAT road before haven't you!

It's kept us in pretty good clover over the years though!

Although still the strongest bid, Suddenly Gold Coast doesn't quite seem a shoe in now does it.

You think so? Why's that?

If anything, I'd say the Delhi woes have taken Hambangtootah's chances from incredibly slim to nigh impossible.

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Australia's Gold Coast is almost certain to host the Commonwealth Games in 2018 after Sri Lanka failed to make a pitch to the 71-member Commonwealth Games Federation at its meeting in India, the host of this year's games.

'It's very strange,' Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke said Monday. 'I've never heard of that before.'

Clarke, a former Olympic runner and world record holder, was commenting on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's decision not to lobby for Hambantota.

The Sri Lankan port city is the only other 2018 contestant after the withdrawal of Nigeria earlier this year.

Clarke, asked by Australian national broadcaster ABC whether the Gold Coast was now assured of being host, said the Sri Lankan no-show had made Australia the frontrunner.

'It certainly puts us in a better light than Sri Lanka,' Clarke said.

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:huh:

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Well no matter the candidacy issues surely this is getting close to the death knell of the CGs?! How can anyone take seriously a major event and its Federation that has reached such a nadir in its organisational and bid processes?

As for the specifics of Hambantota's no show it's obviously a reflection on the poor status of their bid and of their support.

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The end of the Commonwealth Games as we know them? Hells no! It is a return to the Commonwealth Games that we've known since 1930 - with brief exceptions in 1966, 1998, and 2010. It is back to the four corners of the Commonwealth - Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand - with maybe a pit stop in South Africa for good measure or Nigeria for some drama.

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i agree, we have 2014, 2018 on the sunny beautiful gold coast and then hopefully canada or maybe wales

Don't get too excited about the Gold Coast...there is going to be a very big job on the hands of the state government north of the Banana Curtain to sell the bid considering the billions in cut backs to services etc Queenslanders are going to suffer, yet at the same time the economic value of a GC CGs is being brought under more and more examination...

$1bn on Gold Coast campaign at odds with asset sales

ECONOMISTS have questioned whether the Queensland government's $1 billion bid for the 2018 Commonwealth Games is worth the expense.

The bid comes when the state is "crying poor" during a $15 billion asset-sales program.

Premier Anna Bligh will return from Delhi today after spruiking the Gold Coast to the Commonwealth Games Federation's general assembly as a natural fit.

The Gold Coast is in a strong position to win the bid after rival Sri Lankan city Hambantota failed to show for its presentation to Commonwealth Games officials on Sunday.

The host of the 2018 Games will be announced in November next year.

University of Queensland economist John Quiggin said that while there was international prestige associated with hosting global sporting events, economically they had performed "pretty badly".

"My general view is that subsidising sporting events has a generally poor track record on economic policy," Dr Quiggin said. "The government is crying poor and are selling money-making assets, then they are putting money into a loss-maker."

The Bligh government is forging ahead with an unpopular $15bn asset-sales program in a bid to return the budget to surplus and restore the state's critical triple-A credit rating.

Electrical Trades Union Queensland secretary Peter Simpson, who has led the charge against the asset-sales, said the Bligh government had its priorities wrong.

"We're spending a billion on a bid. If we're that broke, why would we sell our assets?" Mr Simpson said. "They say we don't have the money to build hospitals and schools, or we need the money to retire debt -- now the bid. How many times can you spend this money? How stupid do they think we are?"

After the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, consultants KPMG found the total expenditure on the Games totalled about $2.9bn but it would generate $1.6bn over the next 20 years. The boost came largely from tourism, sponsorship and advanced investment in infrastructure undertaken before the Games.

An audit report after the Games, however, found the Australian, Victorian and local governments had provided $161 million in contributions to the Games.

Melbourne economist and high-level sports coach Mark Stewart said hosting such events meant public money was not spent in other vital areas.

"Usually when people bid for these things, they only talk about the long-term impact but rarely do they talk about the public money they could have spent elsewhere," Dr Stewart said.

The problem that the CGF might have is to chose between a Sri Lankan coastal town that could make Delhi look like an organiser's wet dream, but at the same time may have billions thrown behind it from Chinese backers. Or they go to the Gold Coast which may be organisational fine but bad news both economically plus spreading the CG love around the participating nations.

At the risk of being too Machiavellian and pessimistic I wonder if Hambantota's backers have already sown up some serious backing and didn't show because the message has been given they are in the box seat of a dutch auction.

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:( Then it truly IS the end of the CWGs as we know it...Over bloated, expensive and just plain pointless.

...like I said,

Now we can get back to a serious CWGs that fits into their surroundings...Glasgow up first :)

:blink: imagine if it were Abuja next?

:unsure: Actually - Don't!

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...like I said,

Now we can get back to a serious CWGs that fits into their surroundings...Glasgow up first :)

:blink: imagine if it were Abuja next?

:unsure: Actually - Don't!

Actually, I had that thought running though my mind quite a few times already. Has anyone heard about the progress Abuja's LRT and airport expansion ?

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One of the pioneer Indian newspapers, Hindustan Times reported that efforts are being made to get Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa as chief guest for the closing ceremony of the nineteenth edition of the Games.

This would be a sign of the extended support by the Indian Government towards Sri Lanka who are in a bid to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games

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