CWG events in Chandigarh

Chandigarh will host the shooting and archery competitions of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, six months before the actual Games begin in Birmingham. This might sound slightly mad, but there’s method to this: The medals from the two competitions in India will be counted in the official CWG 2022 table. This will definitely push India up the medal table — and help inflate India’s vanity. In the last three CWG, 63 out of the 231 medals won by India across all sports were earned by the shooters. That amounts to a staggeringly high 27.27%; the share of gold medals won by the shooters, 25 out of 79 in three CWG, is even more impressive at 31.64%. This is the reason the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) will use the country’s money and resources to organise the events in Chandigarh.

The Commonwealth Games have 10 core sports and several optional ones — shooting and archery belong to the optional category. It’s the prerogative of the host to pick up a few of the optional sports; typically, hosts select sports they are likely to win medals in, or ones that are very popular in that country. For instance, at the 2010 CWG, the organisers included tennis, archery and wrestling in the programme, excluding basketball and triathlon. Yet, when Birmingham CWG hosts exercised their right to choose sports that suit them, IOA officials reacted with petulance and threatened to boycott the event. This is unfortunate.

Birmingham dropped shooting from the programme because the nearest shooting range appropriate to hold the event is 210 km away; further, the range needed to be revamped to bring it up to the requisite standard. The organisers deemed this a waste of public money. However, Indian sports administrators believe it is acceptable to spend the taxpayers’ money on hosting shooting and archery events in India in order to earn bragging rights. As Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju said, ‘If you are getting medals, whatever the way it has to be, I think it is justified…’ Thus, we will have the absurdity of two CWG events in Chandigarh, six months and 6,600 km away from the Birmingham CWG.

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