New Indian Express: Dress rehearsal
Swaroop Swaminathan
The evening chill in the last week of November was beginning to make its presence felt in Bhubaneswar. It was not a couple of layers of winter clothing cold but there was a genuine nip in the air. The weather app pegged the temperature at 15°c but the locals were unmindful of the dip. It was past midnight and the city was finally coming to life. But not in the one expected. The first few days of winter also signaled the beginning of the wedding season and more than a few matches were made this year. As guests made their way back to the hotel rooms after work, they were greeted with sights of the bride and groom exchanging vows inside a hall at the same hotel. This was just one of the 800 weddings that were performed in hotels across the city in this time frame.
This is the time of year when hotels rake in the money. Keeping that in mind, guests on work are politely requested to vacate their rooms for a couple of days to accommodate the ones who are here for marriage. A few awkward smiles and pregnant pauses are exchanged before a compromise is reached.
This cycle will take a break next year. Weddings will continue to happen but a bigger caravan will be in town. “No marriages in this hotel then (Nov-Dec 2018),” the receptionist of one prominent hotel says. “We have 80 rooms. They have all been booked for the hockey World Cup.” It’s the scenario everywhere in Odisha’s state capital, right from the big five-stars to the three-stars.
The state government has booked all hotels for visiting sides, non-playing support staff and International Hockey Federation (FIH) delegates. At a conservative estimate, that’s more or less 500 of the best hotel rooms gone. If relatives of players and officials decide to turn up (it’s believed that Malaysia themselves have asked for 60 rooms even though their team and support staff total only 25), more rooms will disappear off the market.
Accommodation
Therein lies the first and, perhaps, the biggest challenge of the Organising Committee for the World Cup – accommodation. With rooms booked to cater to the 16 teams, it looks likely the fans traveling from other parts of India and the world (an estimated 20,000 are expected to travel to the city during the three weeks) may have to make alternate arrangements. That may include driving down from Puri or Cuttack, an hour’s drive, on matchdays.
“In terms of the number of players and staff coming, Asian Athletics Championships (AAC) was the biggest, with around 1000. The difference with the World Cup is that a large number of supporters travel,” Vishal Dev, Odisha government’s sports secretary, says. “Accommodation for them might be a challenge, not for the teams. We have enough hotels to take care of them. Take into consideration 20,000 people coming in and accommodation will be the biggest challenge.”
To address this shortcoming, the state government is in the process of compiling a list of all guest houses and bringing it up to a suitable level for people (fans) to come and stay during the bash. “We hope to mobilise quite a few guest houses this way,” Dev says. Fans may also be urged to look for rooms in Puri and Cuttack as the government is deep in discussions with hoteliers in both of those cities as well. “If that happens and the fans are open to the idea, then we shouldn’t have any problems,” the sports secretary opines.Hope has also been put on new hotels being built by Novotel and ITC and the 100s of rooms they may generate.
Politics
The Kalinga Stadium has a capacity of 9000 but the organisers want to expand it to 17000. That idea has not gone down well with the opposition parties in the state. As part of the initiative, a further 1250 seats are going to be added to the East and West stands. Apart from this, two new structures are going to come up in the North and South sections, 3500 seats in each. It’s the upcoming South stand that is causing consternation.
A part of the swimming pool inside the main sports complex will be demolished to build the South stand. This has bemused a few figures. Their reasoning is the pool was refurbished only recently at a cost of a crore and to see it removed so soon does not justify the refurbishment cost.
It was rumoured that a couple of fringe groups planned to throw eggs on the Indian players during their quarterfinal match against Belgium to spread awareness about the escalating cost.
Nothing happened (security was beefed up to such an extent that even media persons weren’t allowed to bring water bottles from the pantry to the stands) but there is certainly a sense that all is not well. The existing undercurrent started after the state successfully bid for and hosted the AAC. There is a lot of goodwill among the people as the state carried out the entire exercise in 90 days but the opposition weren’t happy with the amount that was spent there as well.
There is also the issue of Pakistan taking part. With both centre as well as the state scheduled to go to polls four months after the World Cup, there is a feeling that it may become an election issue. Elena Norman, Hockey India CEO, Vishal and Narinder Batra, FIH (International Hockey Federation) president, all made the right noises when asked about the participation of the Green Shirts but it will be interesting to see how the situation develops.
Food and hygiene
The World League Final was conducted well and the organising committee received brownie points. But it’s fair to say they will have to be more proactive when it comes to tackling the problems surrounding food and hygiene. At least five — Spain, Argentina, England, Netherlands and Germany — of the eight teams at the World League Final suffered from a mystery illness (it may have been associated with food and/or hygiene). While the state government reacted by ordering food safety checks at kitchens of all team hotels, they should have covered their bases even before the start of the event.
A repeat episode at the World Cup will be a public relations disaster. It doesn’t look great when an FIH-accredited doctor tells the teams to wash their hands with soap at periodic intervals. It looks likely the incident may have already spooked Netherlands enough to look for alternate accommodation, including bringing in their own cook. Germany, who lost six players to the same kind of illness, is also toying with the idea of bringing in a cook. That brings with it its own complications.
However, the state has the know-how to pull it off. The Asian Athetic Championships was an example. They got the right to host it three months before the actual start date and they pulled it off. “We called it the 90-day challenge,” Dev says about it. “We pulled it off in the end.”With eleven months to go, they have the time and resources to pull off the World Cup.
Will they? Watch this space.