Birmingham Games: Big Surprises and Turning Point for Indian Athletes

The NEC Arena in Birmingham was the busiest hub on the final day. A forty five minute drive from the city centre, it had the badminton and table tennis halls packed at 8:50 am on Monday morning. The schools on vacation meant mothers were bringing in their children to sporting arenas. As my train from Birmingham New Street wheeled out, I met two Scottish boys of 7 and 9 and their mother, busy scanning the schedule of the day. There was no Scotland on the final day, but Ben Thomson and Jason Thomson wanted to catch PV Sindhu in action, so had their mother buy tickets for 85 Pounds for each of them.

PV Sindhu was the biggest draw on the final day of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. NEC, that was hosting Table Tennis and badminton had a footfall of over 72,000 on Monday the 8th.

Venue manager at NEC, Chris Evanley tells me, ‘Indians have been the biggest draw on all days of the Games. There is a large expat population in Birmingham. It also is one of the youngest cities in Europe. A lot of people who are working in the IT and infrastructure have disposable income.'

By the time the train reached NEC, Ben and Jason had their plan charted- Sindhu, Lakshya and then, Sharath Kamal.

NEC was the hub for Badminton, Table Tennis, Boxing and Weightlifting during the Games and the first two fixtures- Sindhu vs Michelle Li in the Gold medal match and Lakshya Sen vs Ng Tze Yong drew massive crowds. India was already assured of medals; the fight was to secure the Gold. A group of 19 fans of Indian origin, draped in tri-colour had travelled from Manchester. “We chose Sindhu's match over Hockey because we were sure that she would strike Gold. We wanted to go to Hockey as well, but since the matches were overlapping and the venues too