(Reuters) - Sri Lanka urged the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) to look into ways of bringing the event to emerging nations after Hambantota lost out to Australia's Gold Coast in the bidding for the 2018 Games.
The CGF opted for Gold Coast by a 43-27 margin over the Sri Lankan city, its only rival, in a vote held in St Kitts and Nevis on Friday.
Sri Lanka's bid, which focused on a theme of rebuilding the country after more than 25 years of civil war, had given the CGF something to think about, said Ajith Nivard Cabraal, head of Hambantota's bid committee.
"The fact that 27 countries thought our position was right was a good thing and maybe the Commonwealth (Games Federation) now needs to look how they should get emerging nations to come forward," Cabraal told Reuters by telephone from St Kitts and Nevis.
"We think we gave it our best shot. We have brought in a new thought to the Commonwealth.
"A defeat is a defeat and we have no excuse for that. It would have been fantastic to get the Games," said Cabraal, who is also the country's central bank governor. "We have got our side conveyed to the rest of the world."
The bid committee had predicted a close contest with Sri Lanka getting at least 33 votes.
Hambantota is the constituency of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had been aiming to change the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami-ravaged coastal city into a unique modern sports city through hosting the 2018 Games.
However, Gold Coast was seen as the safer of the two bids with the CGF still smarting from the public relations disaster that surrounded the Delhi Games last year when last-minute government intervention was required to clean up filthy facilities and dangerous infrastructure.
Many top athletes such as Jamaica's multiple Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt skipped the 2010 Games because the timing did not fit their schedules, while other athletes stayed away because of security concerns which proved unfounded.
NO BENEFIT?
Hambantota's bid drew little attention in Sri Lanka, and support to bring the Games to the island nation was not universal.
Many believed it was not a good time to host the event with the country's $50 billion economy trying to get back on track following the end of the war in 2009.
"At least it's good that we lost it without being trapped in a huge debt crisis by holding the Games in 2018," Vijitha Herath, a legislator from Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), told Reuters.
"We would have been in the same position as Greece had we won it .... this will not benefit the country or the people."
The island nation's defeat in the vote comes as Commonwealth leaders on Oct. 30 in Perth defended their moves to toughen support for human rights, rejecting criticism the group was becoming irrelevant and had failed at their three-day summit to hold Sri Lanka accountable for alleged war-crimes in the final stage of the conflict.
Earlier this year a U.N.-appointed panel said it had found "credible allegations" that tens of thousands of civilians were killed and war crimes committed in the final months of Sri Lanka's war with the Tamil Tigers in 2009.
"It's really good that we didn't win it," said a stockbroker on condition of anonymity. "Given the lack of transparency and infrastructure, the country would have run into bankruptcy had we won it."
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