India is hosting the Badminton World Championships after 17 years. Over 400 players, global TV audiences, and the prestige of being “one of the best” venues in the world. The KD Jadhav Indoor Hall in Delhi has been spruced up with new wooden flooring, better lighting, waterproofing, and even anti-pigeon gel. The Sports Authority of India says it is “all set.”
But are we?
The checklist looks impressive on paper. 100+ workers on site daily. Revamped washrooms. Four CPWD engineers are monitoring. BWF officials called the lighting “perfect.” Yet the questions Danish shuttler Mia Blichfeldt raised cannot be glossed over with gel and sound machines.
“Dirt on the courts. Bird poop in the arena. Air pollution.” For a European athlete used to clinical standards, these are not minor complaints. They are about athlete welfare, about whether India can provide a world-class competitive environment, not just a world-class opening ceremony. This is the pattern we keep repeating. We get the big event, we scramble in the last month, we fix what TV viewers complained about during the India Open, and we call it preparation. BAI secretary Sanjay Mishra admits the India Open was “a learning experience.” It should not have been. The problem is not effort. It is a system.
Why did it take feedback from TV viewers to realize court lighting needed improvement? Why are we still discussing stray dogs and pigeons days before a world championship? The BWF’s tournament director says he hasn’t seen pigeons because “the gel is doing its job.” That is reactive, not proactive.
Sports infrastructure in India suffers from the same ailment: we maintain, we don’t operate. Stadiums built for the 1982 Asian Games and 2010 Commonwealth Games get a coat of paint before every major event but there is no Standard Operating Procedure to keep them competition-ready year-round. The Sports Ministry has now asked SAI to draft an SOP. That should have existed 15 years ago.
Hosting is also about perception. When Anders Antonsen withdrew citing air pollution, it became a global headline. No amount of anti-pigeon gel can counter the narrative that Indian sporting venues are unhygienic or unsafe. For a sport like badminton, where India has world No.1 contenders and a massive fan base, that perception hurts more than a lost match.
The opportunity here is huge. A successful World Championship can boost grassroots badminton, attract sponsors, and show that India can host Olympic-level events ahead of a 2036 bid. But success will be measured not by how shiny the new signage is, but by whether players leave saying, “We want to come back.”