Montego
Bay (Jamaica), November 14
India’s last minute offer of $ 7.2 million for athlete training tilted the scale in its favour as New Delhi got overwhelming support from member countries to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
India earned the right to host the games by 46 votes to 22 secured by Hamilton, Canada, in a secret ballot during the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) meeting in this Caribbean island country last night.
“I am happy to announce that the host of the 2010 Commonwealth Games will be Delhi in India,” CGF President Mike Fennel announced soon after the voting, much to the relief of a 50-member Indian delegation here which had put in a lot of hard work in the past few days to win the bid.
It was third time lucky for India, the largest Commonwealth country and home to 50 per cent of the Commonwealth population, since earlier they had twice bid unsuccessfully for the games.
It will become only the second Asian nation, after Malaysia (1998), and the third developing country, after Jamaica (1966) to host the games. Canada have already staged the event four times. The previous edition of the games was held in Manchester in 2002 while the next in 2006 will be hosted by Melbourne.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
