In the absence of shooting, India hopes to make 'surprise' gains in CWG 2022

Commonwealth Games will be threatened in shooting's absence while the Birmingham 2022 organisers would look to deliver a successful sporting spectacle after a challenging build-up. The opening ceremony at the Alexander Stadium on Thursday evening will mark the beginning of the sporting extravaganza that remains huge in scale but is fighting to remain relevant. The UK is hosting the mega event for the third time in the last 20 years with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) unable to attract new bidders out of the 56 countries that made up the sporting body due to cost constraints. The CGF has 72 members but is made up of 56 countries. Birmingham too was rather a late entry in the bidding for the the 2022 edition after South Africa expressing its inability to stage the event back in 2017. "We need to make the Games more affordable and take it to cities which are yet to host them," Birmingham 2022 CEO Ian Reid told PTI.

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The 22nd edition of the Commonwealth Games begins this Thursday in Birmingham. The sporting action gets underway on Friday. India have established themselves as one of the powerhouses in the quadrennial tournament over the editions with regular top-four finishes since the turn of the 21st century.

The Games, set to be the biggest and most expensive sporting event in the UK since the 2012 London Olympics, have had to deal with the adverse impact of COVID-19 though the budget remains at 778 million pounds till date. That number needs to come down for the smaller nations interested in bidding for the event. India's top-five finish not a given this timeWhile India remains far from becoming a sporting superpower, the CWG have been a happy hunting ground for the