Commonwealth Games — one of the best things to happen to Indian sports: Milkha Singh

One of the striking features of the Commonwealth Games is the competitive attitude shown by the athletes despite it not contributing to the Olympic qualification or the world rankings.

Make no mistake, hosting the Games is one of the best things to happen to Indian sports in the last two or three decades. It will give a much-needed lift to the Olympic sports. We can now boast of world class infrastructure of the highest quality. New Delhi is now a city that can match Shanghai, Singapore or New York.

Of course, the corruption scandal has left a sour taste and has taken away the charm. Let’s hope these Games produce another Usain Bolt or Chris Hoy. Of course these stars will be missed and had they been here, it would have been a real treat for the people.

But I believe once the Games are underway, things will fall into place. Sports has the power to act as a catalyst to transform the negatives into positives.
As for our athletes, I feel we can do much better than 2006 CWG, Melbourne. We should expect plenty of medals from shooting, boxing and wrestling. These are the sports where we are excelling of late and considering that there is not enough competition to challenge our much superior athletes, I think a lot of medals are on the offing here for us.

Sadly, though, I can’t talk about athletics with the same confidence.
In athletics, at the CWG, the level of competition is very high. All the world class athletes from countries like Australia, Kenya, England, South Africa, to name a few, will be here and that doesn’t make things easy for us. In terms of competition in athletics, CWG is second only to Olympics.

It is disappointing that no one has won a gold medal in athletics at the Commonwealth Games since I did that in 1958. But I wouldn’t blame only the athletes for that. They should have been trained ‘army-style’ since the day the CWG was allotted to us.

But I cannot see much progress made by our athletes. Even if we win one medal in athletics, I will be more than happy.
Similar is the case with hockey. Countries like England and New Zealand have started doing well in last few years and with Australia and Pakistan already there, things are not going to be easy.
Let’s roll out a red carpet for our guests and make these the Games to remember.
My best wishes to all our athletes. They are the ambassadors of our country and hope they make us proud.

Milkha Singh is the only Indian to win a gold medal in athletics at the Commonwealth Games