The evaluation report on the two cities
namely:
Abuja,
Nigeria
and
Glasgow,
Scotland, competing to host the
2014 Commonwealth Games is out (1). According to the report,
Abuja
has to work hard, while
Glasgow
has been given a pad on her back. While getting a better evaluation is an
additional reason for the Glaswegian Commonwealth Games biding Committee, to
rejoice, they must apply some brakes in their current merriments. The
evaluation report is a wake up call to the Abuja Commonwealth Games bidding
Committee, that, if they were sleeping on their laurels, they have to be alert.
They must not sleep until the Games is
Abuja’s.
It should also be pointed out that, the
evaluation report is by no means final or binding. It is not even going to
influence the decision of voters on the 9th of November in
Colombo,
Sri
Lanka.
It also has to be pointed out that, while
officially
Glasgow
is the bidding city, should she win on the 9th of November, the Games
will technically be staged in two cities. For
Glasgow
is planning to stage some competitions in
Edinburgh.
Furthermore, there is a brewing controversy in
Scotland on the planned destruction
of swimming pools and the constantly skyrocketing cost of the Games (2). As at
now,
Abuja doesn’t have worries on spiralling
cost of the Games and if she wins, the Games will not be staged in two cities
as it is the case with
Glasgow.
But the only problem that Abuja, whose construction only began in 1976 and
still under going renovations, and her transportation system, will see several
changes before 2014. It is therefore strange that,
Abuja with her smooth large transport networks,
which are almost free from traffic jams are pointed a finger.
Scotland’s independence quest
However, the Nigerian government and the government
of the Federal Capital Territory, are currently expanding Abuja’s already
elaborates motorways and are also constructing a light rail system or Tram way
system within and around Abuja. And the new ecological means of transportation under
construction in
Abuja
will be completed on or before 2014. While Abuja can nevertheless remain calm
because the history of such events are on her side, in spite her lower
evaluations, another dimension which has not been taken into consideration are
the quest for independence currently spreading in Scotland. The quest for
Scotland’s
independence is spearheaded by Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party. Mr
Salmond is
Scotland’s
First minister (3).
It is not clear whether by 2014, (that is if
Glasgow wins);
Scotland will still be part of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. For one doesn’t know
whether Alex Salmond, the future president of
Scotland
is in support of the Commonwealth Games, given his hatred for
London
and his love for
Brussels,
the Federal Capital of Federal Europe. Another fogy area which needs clarity is
whether Mr Salmond, in case he realises his dream to end 300 years of English
domination, will accept, the Queen as Head of state of the Commonwealth. For given
his posturing, it is not clear he will accept, hence, it is also strange why
Glasgow desires to stage
a Game that, her future president who is currently only a First minister may
not be interested. Looking at the history of elections for the summer games
brings some interesting points in favour of Abuja compared to Glasgow A. No
Political
Capital
City
has lost to a Commercial Capital in a country of a smaller population. B.
there has only been eight non-capital cities elected out of 26 and one of
them is the city of
Los Angeles.
Saviour
Los
Angeles considered centre of
worldwide entertainment, powerful media outlets, had the great fortunes of
hosting two successful Olympic Games and in the process netting the first
profits in 1932 and 1984. However it is primordial to point out that, in those
successful hosting feats of
Los
Angeles, she has never been elected whenever she stood
as candidate city. She has attempted for over five decades but lost to
competing capital cities. Los Angles was turned down in 1924, 1928 but, she
only had the opportunities to stage the Olympic Games, when no one could and
the 1932 situation was a case in point.
That year, was a period of Global Economic Depression, and no nation or wanted
to stage the Olympic Games and the saviour was
Los Angeles and she actually made a profit
for the first time in the history of Olympics Games.
Los
Angeles was again turned down
in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1976 and 1980 before hosting again in 1984, when no nation
wanted to host the Games and she repeated her profit feat of 1932, thus
making the 1984 Olympic Games, the most profitable sports festival ever organised
for a single city. As pointed out above, Los Angeles has never been elected
when she filed in her candidacy to host the Olympic Games, but has nevertheless
hosted twice because, there were no other cities willing to host and curse on Los
Angeles still continues today. For this year, she was turned down during the domestic
bid to represent the
United
States to bid for 2016 Olympic Games.
Capital cities for the most part have beaten
Los Angeles, which is ironically the centre
of worldwide entertainment.
Historic
precedents
The recent list of favourites beaten
because of hype over an evaluation report are as follows: Paris scored best on
the evaluation for 2012 Olympic Games but lost to London and PYEONGCHANG, South
Korea scored best on the evaluation for the 2014 Winter Games but lost to Sochi,
Russia. The other examples are
Athens who was the
heavy favourite to win the hosting of the Olympic Games in 1996; but they ended
up losing to
Atlanta,
USA.
Toronto,
Canada, was equally tipped
by evaluation report as the heavy favourite to win the 2008 Olympic Games, but she
lost to
Beijing,
China. The Commonwealth Games has
little history to draw on, because many cities pull out before the votes or go
unopposed, but the best piece of history is the parallel that could be taken
between Hamilton, Canada acting as the Athens of the Commonwealth Games Movement
(also being a business town) losing to New Delhi India, a political capital
city of a much larger country as far as population is concern.
Like
Abuja
versus
Glasgow today,
New
Delhi was rated lower in the evaluation report to
Hamilton. Coming on top
of an evaluation report is many times the Kiss of Death for the city placed as
the favourites. Another commonly known thing is that no bids are won offering
lower amount of training grant/ money as was shown in case of
Kingston
in 2003 versus
Hamilton.
If
Los Angeles with everything going for her
including saving the Olympic Games twice can get turned down seven times
and never winning a hosting bid for the Olympic Games, then
Glasgow can suffer the same fate. The simple
fact that,
Los Angeles was beaten by
Moscow points to the fact that,
the Commonwealth Games bids are not immured of politics and drama, in which
people express their agendas very clearly but in secretly.
History recently has been very kind to
frontier bids. Another examples are those of
Atlanta
1996 (the eastern part of the
United
States never hosted any summer games despite
the economic power of that region), Beijing 2008, Sochi 2014, New Delhi 2010. Multiple
attempts seem to be a thing of the past as many recently have been successful
first attempt or second especially in the case of Political Capitals of high
population countries. And the last food for thought was the victory of
Kuala-Lumpur,
Malaysia,
a political capital, against
Adelaide, commercial
city of
Australia.
Notes:-
-1) link to the Evaluation full report: http://www.thecgf.com/2014_Evaluation_Report.pdf
-2) http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1242452007
-3) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/18/nscot118.xml
** The latter links were retrieved from the
web today September 7th 2007.
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