[TheLucyLee]

Making China's Olympics look like the pinnacle of superevents:

Crisis-plagued Commonwealth Games get hit again - Yahoo! News


The crisis-plagued Commonwealth Games took another hit Sunday only hours before they were declared open when an Indian team official who had been living at the athletes' village was diagnosed with dengue fever.

Ruptu Gogoi, a 30-year-old official with the lawn bowls team, was admitted to the GB Pant hospital in New Delhi on Saturday night and was said to have the disease Sunday. He is the first person affiliated with the games to contract the illness.
"I can confirm he has dengue fever, but his condition is now stable," hospital spokesman Dr. Rajiv Saigol told The Associated Press, adding that Gogoi could be discharged Monday evening.

Dengue fever, a painful illness that can be life-threatening, is a viral disease that
spreads through mosquito bites. It has become an issue in the Indian capital this year because of the extended monsoon season, which increased the amount of stagnant water around the city.

The athletes' village, which some described as uninhabitable late last month, was said to have pools of water nearby as workers struggled to get things finished on time. The unhygienic conditions at the village even prompted several teams to delay their departures to India until things improved.

[mikefertynnz]

They should have held this in Bangalore or Hyderabad where it's less chaotic.

[welihiedginly]

Everyone doubted the South Africans could pull off the World Cup and they ended up hosting the most successful event in modern Cup history. Yet the new super power of India floundered. This could make an interesting case study of event management...

[DoroKickcrofe]

For a lot of people in India, these Games don't mean much, if anything. Cricket is the one sport that the masses follow, if they follow any sport at all. So you must understand that hosting these Games in Delhi has been kind-of a big deal only for the few elite who care about India's image abroad. For most Indians, money could have been better spent doing something else, anything else!

Another point to note is that the Games are being managed by a bunch of clueless politicians rather than professional sports management concerns. All the Olympic Games hosted in U.S. cities weren't actually hosted by American government, per se, but by various local organizations set up to bring the games to town and then to fundraise and do everything else that needs to be done. In India's case, this has been a politically driven adventure, and sure enough, you will find many Indians who now say that these Games should have been held in Bangalore or Hyderabad, or in the most well-governed state in India, Gujarat...which would be anathema to the ruling party because those places are governed by (and Gujarat has been a strong hold of) opposing party.

Of course, to the world, this is just a nice setup to compare (poorly) India with China. And in many ways, indeed, this is a microcosm of sorts of the reality (or realities) of contemporary India. You've got a country full of engineers and programmers that manage billions of dollars worth of projects around the globe. Heck, in New Delhi itself stands a great example of modern project management: the new subway system that has been built and project managed without a hitch, on time, and under budget. Yet you also have bungling local sports project that had about 8 years to get things built up and set right, and it goes about as wrong as it can go so far and makes the whole country look like a bunch of amateurs.

[DoroKickcrofe]

well, looks like the opening of the Games went off very well and seems to have salvaged some pride for the Indian organizing committee. Also, the metro opened up another line to serve the airport and the sports village, almost half a year ahead of schedule... like I said, when corrupt ruling class gets out of the way, India knows how to handle big projects...

India restores pride with Games opening show - Yahoo! News

[DoroKickcrofe]

Commonwealth Games Begin - Slide Show - NYTimes.com