'After CWG, India should host Olympics'

New Delhi: Impressed with India's preparedness for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, five-time Olympic gold medalist rower Sir Steve Redgrave said on Thursday 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 they should 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 CWG village as an engineering marvel.

"Their Commonwealth Games village is absolutely amazing. It's the best engineering I have ever seen. Though some work is still left, the organisers have come out with a great infrastructure," said the three-time Commonwealth Games gold medalist.

Echoing similar sentiments, 2004 Athens Olympics gold medalist 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," Holmes 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.