By JOHN PYE

Associated Press

2011-11-10 02:41 PM

The vote to determine who will host the 2018 Commonwealth Games will come down to a decision between fact and prediction.

To boost its case ahead of Friday’s vote in St. Kitts and Nevis, the glitzy Gold Coast tourist strip is promoting Australia‘s experience in hosting large-scale events, its existing infrastructure and the sun, surf and sand lifestyle that already attracts 11 million visitors annually.

Hambantota is offering the Commonwealth Games Federation a chance to take its flagship event to new ground, literally and figuratively.

On the southern Sri Lanka coast, Hambantota is in the midst of a massive construction boom, and is promising to deliver brand new stadiums, an international airport and other infrastructure by 2016.

Mark Stockwell, a former Commonwealth Games swimming champion who is the Gold Coast bid chairman, said he was confident of the caliber of the Australian bid "but nervous about the result."

"I would say about half of the delegates still may not have made up their mind," Stockwell said in comments published in Thursday’s Courier-Mail newspaper. "Sri Lanka has taken a totally different approach to us and their approach will strike a chord with some developing nations."

The Sri Lankan government is bankrolling the Hambantota bid, hoping to use the games as a catalyst to develop a new economic and sporting hub for its Southern Province which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami.

Australia has hosted the games _ founded in 1930 as the British Empire Games _ in four different state capitals, most recently at Melbourne, Victoria, in 2006. A winning bid by Gold Coast would make it the first regional Australian city to host the event.

Hambantota is aiming to be just the third Asian host, following Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998 and the trouble-plagued games in New Delhi last year.

The Commonwealth Games Federation Evaluation Commission described the Gold Coast’s plans as "exciting" after completing an inspection visit earlier this year, when the popular theme park Sea World was clearly visible in the background during a trip to the proposed games aquatics venue on the Gold Coast broadwater.

"Overall, we can tell you that the proposition of staging the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast is an exciting one and appears, based on our initial analysis, to be sound," Scotland’s Louise Martin, who led the evaluation commission, said in an assessment delivered to all 71 member associations.

An assessment of Hambantota’s bid the following week identified the Sri Lankan bidder as a risker option.

The evaluation team was satisfied that Hambantota could guarantee a "safe and peaceful" games, but warned that significant investment was needed in telecommunications infrastructure, transport and hospitals and said staging the games there presents a "medium-to-high risk" compared with the "low risk" of the Gold Coast.

Hambantota plans to use the stadium built to host 2011 Cricket World Cup matches _ and named after Sri Lanka President Hahinda Rajapaksa _ as the main venue in 2018, and promises to build every other venue.

Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage, part of a 60-strong Sri Lankan delegation to St. Kitts which includes star cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan, is challenging CGF voters to select Hambantota to prove that it’s not only advanced economies that can host such major international events.

Other power players in the Sri Lankan delegation include Namal Rajapaksa, son of Sri Lankan president, and Central Bank Governor and bid chairman Ajith Nivard Cabraal.

"The fact that there is a seven-year lag tells me that the CGF rightly wants people to get ready for the Games and provide the opportunity for new countries to emerge," Cabraal said this week. "I believe strongly that the whole experience hinges not on being event-ready but on getting ready over seven years.

"There are enormous opportunities for young people to train, for businesses to grow, for venues to be constructed and for legacies to be planned. That’s what our bid is all about."

The Hambantota bid allows for all but three venues to be in a single cluster, meaning 90 percent of athletes will have to travel no more than one kilometer to competition on training venues.

"We’ve listened to athletes and put functionality and convenience at the forefront of the planning and design process," said Aluthgamage, adding that all the proposed venues, excluding a velodrome, would be built regardless of the outcome of Friday’s vote.

All venues will be financed and owned by the government to guarantee use and control, organizers said, including plans for an Exhibition Center to be used for Bollywood productions and help Hambantota evolve into one of the five ‘metro cities.’

The Gold Coast bid proposes to primarily use and upgrade existing facilities in southeast Queensland state, including cycling and shooting facilities which were used during the 1982 Commonwealth Games in nearby Brisbane.

Top Stories