Hambantota bid praised by Comm Games officials

Commonwealth Games officials on Thursday praised the bid from the Sri Lankan port town of Hambantotato host the multi-sport event in 2018.

Sri Lanka’s southern port town Hambantota and Australia’s Gold Coast are the only bidders for the 2018 event, having lodged their bids with the Commonwealth Games Federation in Kuala Lumpur last month.

“We have been impressed with the vision for Sri Lanka and Hambantota and now have a clear view of where the hosting of the Commonwealth Games could fit within that vision,” said Louise Martine, the head of the evaluation commission, at the end of a four-day evaluation visit.

She said the proposal of staging the Commonwealth Games in Hambantota is an “exciting one and, given the development of the relevant infrastructure, will provide a unique games experience for the athletes and other games client groups.”

The commission’s visit to Sri Lanka follows last week’s visit to the more fancied Gold Coast in Australia, which has most of its sporting infrastructure in place as opposed to Hambantota which is still in its planning stage. It emerged on the sporting scene only this year when it hosted two World Cup cricket matches.

It lies on Sri Lanka’s southern coast — an area that was severely damaged in the 2004 tsunami — and has no international airport and no international hotels.

Much of the landscape is still covered by thick forests and lush rice fields.

Martine said her officials met the people in Hambantota and those involved in developing the city.

“We noted substantial progress and have no doubt about the resolve to deliver the necessary infrastructure by 2016,” she said. “The leadership shown by the national and district governments is impressive. The alignment of agencies around the national, regional and games vision is equally impressive.”

The commission will release its report on the two bid cities by Oct. 11, a month before the vote to select the host at the federation’s general assembly in St. Kitts and Nevis.

Sri Lanka hopes to spend up to $6 billion on games projects, a colossal sum for a country that is still recovering from a 26-year civil war.

Ajith Nivad Cabral, the governor of Sri Lanka’s central bank and co-chairman of the Commonwealth bidding committee assured that the country is up to the task of making all its plans real.

“We want to assure you not only we are showing you what’s here on paper and what’s here on a model, but we have got on our hearts the desire and the will to make it happen,” he said. “We will deliver all our promises.” AP reports.