2010 Commonwealth Games - Legacy

Legacy

One of the aims of hosting the Commonwealth Games was to build world-class athletics infrastructure within the country, expose audiences to top-level non-cricket competition and encourage the youth to "Come out and play" (the official theme of the games). Building a sporting culture that looks beyond cricket is seen as an important task for a country which won its first ever individual Olympic gold medal in Beijing 2008, despite having the world's second-largest population.

Sebastian Coe, former Olympic gold medalist and chairman of the 2012 Summer Olympics Organising Committee, was at the stadium during the 4x400m women's relay and described the audience's cheers for the racers as "potentially the moment that could change the course of athletics in Asia, the moment that could inspire thousands of people who'd never even seen an athletics track before to get involved... To build a truly global capacity in sport, you have to take it round the world – out of your own backyard. That means taking risks and facing challenges, but it has to be done."