Click to play videoNew Delhi: Commonwealth Games Organising Committee Chairman Suresh Kalmadi on Monday said that the Games had got off to a good start and claimed that he did not hear anyone jeering him during the opening ceremony on Sunday.
"The whole team has worked very hard for the last few years and you have got and seen all world class venues. You will see as things go along things will be good. Yesterday's opening ceremony was a good start. So well begun is half done," Kalmadi told CNN-IBN.
When asked if the jeering by a section of the crowd during his speech at the opening ceremony was in a bad taste, Kalmadi replied, "I don't know. I didn't hear all that. I think we should move on and the let the Games happen as the best ever."
He declined to comment on his future plans and said that he was concentrating only on the Commonwealth Games at present.
"Well I am not going to think about it till I finish the Commonwealth Games," he said.
Kalmadi also appealed to the people of the country to move beyond cricket and try and excel in Olympic sports
"I would like them (people of the India) to see the Games and the idea of these Games is to move towards Olympic sports and not only the youth of the country looking towards cricket. Cricket is one thing, you are good at that. But the goals should be global sports and I think you are going to have new icons. I think the people must get interested in Olympic sports. So that is the general message I would like to give," he said.
However, Kalmadi declined to comment on former sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, who has been a vocal critic of the Games.
"To each his own. I don't want to talk about it," was all Kalmadi said when asked to comment on Aiyar.
But Aiyar was back to his Games bashing just a day after the opening ceremony of the Games and raised questions on the high costs of the Games.
"How much did the fireworks cost and the rest of the ceremony cost? How many village dispensaries could have been built? How many Indira Awas Yojna houses built? How many kids inoculated? How many toilets built? Fireworks are an excellent way to blow up money and nothing compared to the fireworks that will follow the CWG investigation," Aiyar told CNN-IBN from Uganda.
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