A World Cup Between Bhubaneswar, Rourkela & The Hague

Around this time in little over forthright from now the first match of FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup would have been Played at the Host City Bhubaneswar. While the Co-Host City Rourkela would be gearing up for to host the first match in World Cup history.

This led to two question in curiosity first the stadium at Rourkela that was suppose to be ready by June 2022, further extended to be ready by October 2022, whether ready with international practice matches played or not? Second the Rourkela Airport which was equipped undan UDAN for nineteen seater Aircraft, whether ready for full fledge commercial flight landing?

Well by hook or cook the ₹200cr investment stadium would be decked up if not on schedule then on time for sure with state-of-the-art facilities, a tunnel connecting the changing room and practice pitch along with a fitness centre and a hydro-therapy pool around the pitch. But so far the information that are featured in media there is not much discussion happening on commercial flights with over 72 seater aircraft landing with players, officials, spectators etc. Hopefully the Airport would be in place before the game takes place.

Well unlike cricket or football World Cup where much of the logistics infrastructure is taken care by private sector, for Hockey the investment is more or less by the Government. It is believed in 2018 when the game returned to India for the third time Bhubaneswar was lucky to hoast sixteen nations, while Odisha Government spends ₹100cr to make capital city ready for World Cup, which is now ₹470cr for Co-Host Rourkela.The Co-Host City Rourkela is approximately 350km by road takes eight to ten hours journey, plus logistics, accommodation facilities for a 20,000 capacity, in a city that even can’t accommodate over thousands of visitors, imagine if five thousand spectators reaches by road in absence of air services and where would they stay and situations of the road by which they would travel. Remember in last two decades Hockey has become synonymous with Odisha.

However, apart from investment in stadium, the World Cup will have a separate accommodation facility that is coming alongside and will be at an additional cost of ₹100cr. This facility will house the players, staff and officials during the match events. Sounds great but even out of 20000 capacity if five thousand spectators arrives looking for accommodation then what would be the situation.

In contrast to journey of Bhubaneswar & Rourkela, dig into The Hague, host of Rabobank 2014 Field Hockey World Cup for both Men & Women hosted inside the Kyocera Stadium of soccer club ADO Den Haag as the main stadium for the 2014 Field Hockey World Cup along with nearby, temporary GreenFields Stadium as the second playing location of the tournament.

The main field in the Kyocera stadium became heart of the international tournament and accommodated 15,000 Field Hockey fans. The stadium remained two weeks as one of the largest Field Hockey stadiums of the world at that moment.

The Rabobank 2014 Field Hockey World Cup was the largest top sporting event in the Netherlands of that year, with 24 Field Hockey teams from 15 countries fought it out for the world title with 432 top players representing 12 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams. A total of 76 matches played in the main stadium and the adjacent GreenFields stadium.

Like a promo-village called Hockey Park with live music-performances, culinary surprises and a diversity of Side Events completed the party. Important pillars of the tournament includes the link with social and cultural objectives, international transfer of knowledge and the development of hockey as a sport.

The Hockey Park has many facilities and it goes without saying that it has an excellent accessibility by bicycle, car and public transportation. Next to the Kyocera Stadium, that offered seats for 15,000 spectators while the GreenFields Stadium has a capacity of 5,000 seats. Both inside and outside the stadiums there are plenty of catering facilities and various entertainment that made the world cup meomorable.

The Municipality of The Hague hosts the Rabobank Hockey World Cup 2014. The Hague has an international, political and cultural character and besides being a large hockey-city it was also logistically interesting. In collaboration with the city of The Hague and in honour of the Hockey World Cup also plenty of activities took place in the town itself. Similarly The Hague alderman responsible for sports, was enthusiastic about the Hockey World Cup that took place in The Hague.

Perhaps Bhubaneswar as well as Rourkela should have learned stories of Hague prior to hosting World Cup. That would have brought festive atmosphere of sports by now in both cities than being busy Work In Progress. Perhaps both missed delivering the game at least six months ahead of today, then that would have given an opportunity to brand both cities.

However, urban planning as well as city branding are least practiced to uplift cities in India. Hopefully the World Cup will leave a legacy that both Bhubaneswar & Rourkela would celebrate for a long. But the reality is Hockey no more needs massive structure nor huge time to have the game. It all began from London 2012 Olympic when the game hosted in a temporary site. Since then it’s been a regular practice and 2014 Hockey World Cup took place inside football stadium within three month’s time in Hague. What is necessity nowadays is to make cities ready with Innovative urban planning.

Be it the biggest stadium or not but more than stadium had it been a 700km both way Cycling highway connecting two Host City Bhubaneswar With Rourkela then it would have definitely created a buz across the globe including tourists.

But who will understand this side of investing in Post World Cup Legacy. Instead of doing that Cities investing on contractors to paint streets to fool own investment that dreaming build Cycling infrastructure, without understanding nor having knowledge on Cycling. Because just painting doesn’t make a city great Host nor Cycling city.

#legacy #WorldCup #HWC2023 #Bhubaneswar #cycling #UrbanPlanning