Ambitious Ahmedabad eyes sporting history

The 2030 Commonwealth Games may be four years away and hosting the 2036 Olympics still only an ambition but Ahmedabad is not waiting to change its landscape and burnish its credentials as the sporting destination of the country.

While the Narendra Modi Stadium has already established itself as a marquee cricketing venue, Ahmedabad and the Gujarat government have bigger targets, including expanding the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Enclave beyond the existing cricket stadium and developing the Gujarat Police Academy as a potential venue for multiple sports at major upcoming multi-disciplinary events.

The proposed plan envisions making the Sabarmati Riverfront the central focus of developing sports infrastructure in the city with the addition of a 12,000-capacity aquatics centre, a multipurpose indoor arena with 18,000 capacity and a massive tennis centre with 24 courts, the show court able to seat 24,000 — all encompassed within the 335 acres of SVP Sports Enclave. Besides these, the enclave is also proposed to have a riverfront park, boulevard and the National Institute for Sports Excellence.

The GPA in Karai, meanwhile, will be a sprawling 143 acre project with an athletics stadium (50,000), a shooting centre with both indoor and outdoor ranges (4,000) and a multipurpose arena incorporating a high performance centre.

Interestingly, while work on both the projects is yet to begin, they are expected to be completed between September 2028-2029 and officials insist they are neither part of the government’s Olympic budget nor developed specifically for the CWG or other events.

“All this is part of the larger legacy planning for the city under the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s urban development goals. We are looking at building world-class sporting infrastructure for the city for the future,” senior Sports Authority of Gujarat official and administrator of the Veer Savarkar Complex Bhowmik Oza said.

However, the two projects are expected to host the bulk of events during the CWG even though nothing has been finalised yet, including the actual list of competitive sports for 2030. Also in contention will be the existing Veer Savarkar Complex, which was the venue the CWG officials visited last month to get an idea about the city’s sports infrastructure.

“The visiting team was impressed with the facilities and declared Ahmedabad was ready right now. We may or may not host events here but the belief is, if this is world-class enough, anything after this can only be better and bigger,” SAG officials claimed.

While the details are still a work in progress, Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya expressed confidence that the city was on course to create a long — term sporting legacy and infrastructure.

“We are confident that the athletes working hard will produce results and get medals with a best-ever performance at these upcoming games,” he said on the occasion of Commonwealth Day coinciding with the 75th edition of Sundays on Cycle programme here.

Besides these, the government is also planning to lay two new hockey turfs at IIT, Gandhinagar. Sanskar Dham, under its sporting wing of the Vijayi Bharat Foundation, is also hoping to host a few sports including archery, wrestling and fencing, building on positive feedback for its organisation during the 2022 National Games. The foundation is also constructing a 10000 capacity hostel which its COO Aditya Awasthi said the foundation was ready to propose as the games village if required.

The World Police and Fire Games 2029 is expected to be a crucial test for the bigger events later.

(The writer was in Ahmedabad on the invitation of the Sports Authority of Gujarat).