Ahmedabad, Aug 18 (SocialNews.XYZ) Ahmedabad must use the 2030 Commonwealth Games to build a sporting and urban legacy for India rather than allow the event itself to dictate what the country builds, according to Dr Utsav Chaware, Director of the Bharat Centre of Olympic Research and Education (BCORE) at Rashtriya Raksha University.
In an exclusive interview with IANS, Chaware said the centenary Commonwealth Games should become a practical test of India's ability to host major sporting events sustainably and could provide important lessons for the country's ambition to host the 2036 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“India must use the Games strategically. As a nation, a city and a state, we need to leverage the opportunities they create. The Games themselves are not the most important thing; what matters is how our cities, states and country use and benefit from them,” he said.
The remark comes as Ahmedabad prepares to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games after the city was formally awarded the event at the Commonwealth Sport General Assembly in Glasgow in November 2025. The Games will mark 100 years of the Commonwealth sporting movement. India is also pursuing its 2036 Olympic ambition, with the Indian Olympic Association's bid currently in the International Olympic Committee's Continuous Dialogue phase with its Future Host Commission.
Chaware, who heads India's first IOC-recognised Olympic Studies Centre, said the central question for Ahmedabad should not simply be whether it can stage the Games, but what the city and country want to achieve through them.
“We should not prepare ourselves merely for the Games; rather, we should use the Games to advance our own broader objectives,” he said. He questioned, “How do we want to come up as a country on the global map? How do we want to project Ahmedabad on the global map as a city and Gujarat as a state on the global map?” His comments come against the backdrop of a fundamental change in the way major sporting events are being designed.
Commonwealth Sport's Games reset framework explicitly calls for lower hosting costs, greater use of existing venues, host-specific Games, mixed public and commercial funding and legacy planning. It says hosting costs should be reduced by at least 60 per cent from historic Commonwealth Games levels and that governments should no longer be expected to provide an unlimited financial guarantee.
Chaware said India should learn from countries that have hosted the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, studying their experiences and adapting successful models to suit India’s own needs. He pointed to Barcelona 1992 Olympics as an example of a city using a major sporting event to transform itself rather than developing infrastructure solely for the event.
“Barcelona’s 1992 Olympics is a strong example, where the Games were used to accelerate urban regeneration, improve infrastructure, transform the waterfront and create new public spaces. Similarly, India should plan the Games not just as a sporting event, but as a catalyst for long-term city development and improved quality of life.” he said, adding that India should “set the terms” instead of becoming entirely following organising bodies.
That approach, he argued, is particularly important because Ahmedabad is already developing substantial sporting infrastructure. Existing facilities such as the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex and Karai facilities could provide a foundation, but he said the Games should be viewed as an ecosystem rather than a collection of competition venues, specailly for the society.
“It is not just the venue where the competition happens. Around the venue, there are many avenues that we should be ready to attend- accommodation, hospitality, transport, training and acclimatization centers, gyms, medical facilities and commercial spaces. Countries often look for suitable locations to establish training bases and acclimatize their athletes before competition. This also brings additional footfall through athletes, officials, spectators, media and tourists, creating demand for hotels, restaurants, retail and local transport. So all these facilities and the wider economic activity have to be planned in tandem as part of the city,” he told IANS.
Ahmedabad's preparations already include major sporting infrastructure projects. The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave is being developed as a key part of the city's sporting plans, while the Gujarat Police Academy area at Karai is being developed into a sports hub. But Chaware warned against assuming that every facility required for the Games must be permanent. One lesson India should draw from recent Olympic hosting, he said, is the greater use of temporary and makeshift venues.
"Paris 2024 demonstrated how temporary structures could allow existing urban spaces and landmarks to become part of the Games without creating a permanent stock of facilities that may struggle to find a post-event purpose. Paris has showcased that instead of building any new venue for the Games, we have been working on the temporary venues,” he said. India would still need permanent infrastructure where it serves longer-term sporting needs, he added, but temporary facilities could allow Ahmedabad to experiment with a more flexible model.
“These makeshift arrangements, these temporary venues can be one of the highlights of how India presents itself.. how do we bring that culture of having temporary venues, using the existing venues in scaled form, in some forms, which represent our own unique innovative ideas?," he emphasised. Chaware cautioned, however, that temporary does not automatically mean cheaper. “Temporary venues can also be more costly than the permanent venues,” he said.
That is where he believes India's preparation should differ from the troubled legacy associated with the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, which faced questions over expenditure, governance and the eventual use of infrastructure. Chaware said Ahmedabad should be prepared from the outset for independent scrutiny of what the Games deliver. He backed the idea of an independent economic and legacy assessment mechanism that would examine the Games after they are over, including infrastructure utilisation, employment, tourism, transport, accommodation, broadcasting, logistics and sporting participation.
“We can have an independent organisation; we can have someone else to scrutinise these Games and pull out some of the challenges and to pull out some of the loose angles,” he said. Such assessments, he said, should not be limited to a government-generated legacy report. “If we simply say everything is good, we risk overlooking the gaps and challenges that come with organising the Games,” he said.
He added, “It is important to critically assess what works, where the shortcomings are and what needs to improve, so that the experience can inform better planning and delivery in the future.”
He proposed that the problems, challenges and gaps identified during major sporting events should be shared with research institutions, universities, organising bodies and management firms. This would allow experts to assess these issues, identify existing solutions and develop India-specific approaches where required, particularly in areas such as accommodation, transportation, traffic management, hospitality, logistics, broadcasting and viewership. The approach would be particularly relevant for India because Ahmedabad is not being prepared for only one major event.
The city and Gujarat are expected to gain experience through a succession of international competitions before 2030, including the World Police and Fire Games in 2029.
The Commonwealth bid itself has been presented as part of a wider effort to build experience and infrastructure ahead of India's Olympic ambition. For Chaware, the sporting legacy should also be measured in athletes and participation rather than only in buildings.
He said Ahmedabad has traditionally been known more for commerce and business than for sport, and the Games should change that. “Legacy is what happens after the Games. Every school, every college, every university should be so packed enough maybe by the end of 2030 that every university might be having an Olympian or an international athlete,” he said.
The question of what sports India should prioritise in 2030 is another area where Chaware believes the host should exercise greater influence. He supports bringing shooting, wrestling, hockey, archery back into the Commonwealth Games programme, along with retaining India's strengths in wrestling and boxing. Shooting has been absent from the Commonwealth Games since Gold Coast 2018, while India has traditionally been a strong performer in the discipline.
“India is very explicitly performing in shooting. Maybe Glasgow was not our home, but India is, Ahmedabad is. So that is one area," he said. He also suggested that yoga could be considered, subject to the formal requirements for recognising a sporting event, while arguing that cricket should not be excluded from the conversation. “With cricket, why not? It will give all the viewership, attendance, sponsorship and it could mold the game how India wants to fashion the game," he said.
The sports programme, he said, should ultimately be used strategically rather than simply expanded for the sake of scale. Commonwealth Sport's Games Reset already envisages a flexible, host-specific sports programme developed jointly with the host, while maintaining integrated para-sport. “We should invite global sponsors, but again, marketing ourselves as a nation, it has to be the cycle economy,” he said.
At the same time, he cautioned against assuming that government funding alone should carry the Games. The experience of previous mega-events shows how quickly costs can escalate. "We need to identify potential gaps and financial risks in advance, test different scenarios and put contingency plans in place so that we are prepared to manage the scale and economical complexity of a mega sporting event," he said.
India, he argued, should combine public funding with partnership and commercial models rather than reducing the scale of the Games simply because of financial concerns. “India should bring some models which are borrowed from international standards, but also create internal models where we fund, yes, the government funds because we want to achieve it, but also the other global and local or regional partners should fund,” he said.
Another area he believes requires attention is athlete safeguarding. BCORE has made Safe Sport and athlete safeguarding a major part of its work, with a national programme planned for the 2026-27 academic session at Rashtriya Raksha University. The programme is intended to bring together athletes, coaches, administrators, safeguarding professionals and researchers and examine issues ranging from risk assessment and safe coaching to reporting mechanisms and the Indian legal framework. BCORE was established in 2024 and is recognised by the IOC as an Olympic Studies Centre. Chaware said safeguarding cannot begin only when athletes arrive at a competition venue.
“Why don't we make Safe Sport an integral part of the training ecosystem, as an integral part of the coaching ecosystem?” he said. He noted that the IOC framework identifies physical, psychological, neglect and sexual abuse as areas of concern, and argued that safeguarding should apply not only to athletes but also to coaches and support staff.
While national sports governance provisions provide for safeguarding officers and policies within federations, he said the critical question is how effectively those mechanisms are implemented. “We have to see that we prepare a Safe Sport that is value-based and it is there in the institution throughout the year, throughout the training session,” he said.
Anti-doping is another area where Chaware believes India needs to strengthen its systems as it prepares for both 2030 and 2036. He said India's sporting performance itself is not the primary concern. “Performance is not a matter,” he said, pointing to India's ability to win medals even at the reduced Glasgow programme, where several of its traditional medal sports were absent. Instead, he identified anti-doping as one of the three areas that India must strengthen, alongside broader participation and its global presentation of the Games.
"India needs more technologically advanced solutions, stronger research and education in anti-doping, and better compliance mechanisms," he noted.
The second priority is participation. Chaware wants the Games connected to India's wider Fit India movement and extended more deeply into rural and tribal communities. The second would be this: sports has to be the vertical or the vehicle for social change in India,” he said.
The third priority is India's global narrative. He said, "Ahmedabad 2030 should give India an opportunity to tell a story about how a major sporting event can be economically, environmentally and socially sustainable."
Source: IANS
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