Impressed with India's preparedness for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, five-time Olympic gold medallist rower Sir Steve Redgrave on Thursday said the country should take forward the legacy of the October 3-14 mega event and bid for the Olympics in future.
"After the Commonwealth Games if India feel they have the infrastructure, then go for the Olympics. Having Olympics in India would be absolutely amazing. The enthusiasm would be much higher than the Commonwealth Games. India should take forward the Games legacy and bid for Olympics," said the legendary English rower who had won gold medals at five consecutive Olympics, starting from 1984 to 2000.
"I think may be three years later after the Commonwealth Games, they (India) would feel that yes we are ready for that (Olympics)," Redgrave said.
Redgrave also praised the organisers of the Delhi Games for building world-class infrastructure, and termed the Games Village as an engineering marvel.
"The Commonwealth Games village is absolutely amazing. It's the best engineering I have ever seen. Though some work is still left but the organisers have come out with a great infrastructure," said the three-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist.
Echoing similar sentiments, 2004 Athens Olympics gold medallist sprinter, Kelly Holmes said India is fully prepared to host the Games.
"The environment in which athletes would be living is key to their success and the Games village has been designed and developed as per the need. A big amount of training facility is available and that's a great job," Homes said.
"I believe the Games will be a great success," added the former middle distance runner.
Both Redgrave and Holmes also lashed out at Indian media for coming out with a series of negative stories about the Delhi's preparedness for the Games.
"If I was the Indian media, I would have done positive stories about the event, about the country's legacy. Not all those negative stories which I am seeing on daily basis in the newspapers," Holmes said.
"71 nations will be participating and 80,000 people will be coming to India. Billions would be watching it on TV. All eyes would be on this event. What message are you delivering to world with negative stories? she questioned.
"Come on, you are hosting such a big event, so please come out with positive stories. All should come forward and help in our own way to promote the Games. Feel proud and honoured," Holmes added.
Redgrave said, "Time is of prime essence and usually when you have little time left before the start of any event, then there are always talk that it won't be a success, we are not ready. I can recall during the Athens Games also same thing happened but it turned out to be big sporting event."
Asked about the star athletes pulling out from this Commonwealth Games, Holmes said, "Games are far relevant than other things. It's unfortunate that some of the athletes are not coming but than European Federation has fixed their tourney so close to the Games that one can't help."
"Otherwise they would have loved to participate."
