Beijing's Olympics were by far the most expensive Olympics ever, but the bill of about $40 billion, as a news report puts it, was akin to mere pocket change for the roaring Chinese economy. Unlike previous hosts that dug themselves deep holes of debt, from Montreal in 1976 to Athens in 2004, China's capital could afford new stadiums, subways and roads. Even before the China’s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games won, a massive investment of more than US$20 billion in its infrastructure project had already begun. It was one of the largest construction projects ever in China since the construction of the Great Wall, which dated back some 2000 years ago.
As planned Beijing tripled the length of its expressway networks, expanded and upgraded its public transport system and built dozens of competition and training venues. Twenty two new stadiums, fifteen renovated facilities, two new Ring Roads, one hundred forty-two miles of new infrastructure, eight new subway lines, two hundred fifty two new star-rated hotels, forty km of cleaned rivers, one million new trees and eighty three km of planted greenbelt were put in place. Even an artificial mountain and lake, at the scale of the projects of the Qing Dynasty Emperors, were built in the Olympic Park. The Olympic Park itself was three times the size of New York’s Central Park, and the North-South Central Axis linking the Olympic Park with Tiananmen Square was conceived by no less than Albert Speer Jr. Entire new Central Business Districts had sprung up in the vertical image of HongKong and Shanghai. These vast additions to Beijing had come at the expense of older hutong streets and housing fabric being forcibly demolished, or socialist-era factories relocated, releasing huge tracts of land—all land is state-owned—for urban renewal. The organizers recruited more than 400,000 volunteers. About forty million pots of flowers were brightening up the city's streets. More than a million cars had been taken off the roads and two hundred factories closed to ease air pollution. A 100,000-strong security force of armed police, commandos and other troops were stationed around the city. The authorities had installed 300,000 surveillance cameras and sited anti-aircraft missiles next to the Bird's Nest. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 29th Olympic Games, in sync with the Government was giving out a clear signal to the world, that not a single stone will be left unturned to make the Beijing Olympics an iconic event.
On the other hand, the initial total budget estimated by Indian Olympic Association in 2003 for hosting the Commonwealth Games was US$358 million, but official total budget estimation in 2010 became US$2.5 billion, which excludes non-sports-related infrastructure development in the city such as airports, city beautification and roads. Originally the plan was to build a completely new athletics stadium, one that would outrival Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. However lack of funds and available land pulled curtains on it. Instead a new aquatics centre in the Delhi University with five swimming pools, a new Table-Tennis hall in the Yamuna Sports Complex and new stadiums for Badminton and Squash in the Siri Fort Sports Complex have been built. However, with less than two months to go to the opening ceremony, much of the Indian capital still resembled a building site. To worsen it, heavy rains exposed multiple chins in the armor of commonwealth game preparations. The construction of thestadia was not over, long after it was declared by the authorities to be over. The shooting range got damaged by heavy rains while monsoon downpours cause water to seep through the roof and walls of the newly built swimming pool complex. If it was not enough, a loose grill tripped and injured an Indian swimmer at a test event.
However, Delhi with much flexible deadlines, has finally put in place a four-lane, 2.2 km underground stretch linking the Games Village to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium; construction of road under-bridges and over-bridges along railway lines; expanding road infrastructure by constructing flyovers, cloverleaf flyovers, and bridges that had been planned to improve links for the Games and city in general. The Delhi Metro got be expanded to accommodate more people and boost the use of public transport during the 2010 games – ironically at 420 km long, it is now one of the world's longest networks extending to Gurgaon and the Noida. Indira Gandhi International Airport also got modernized, expanded, and upgraded costing nearly US$ 1.94 billion. It improved airport passenger capacity to more than 37 million passengers a year by 2010. A new runway also got constructed, allowing for over 75 flights an hour and – at over 4400 meters long – it is one of Asia's longest. The airport got connected to the city via a six-lane expressway and the $580 million Delhi Airport Metro Express. Having said that, some serious doubts about the credibility of the infrastructure were raised, when a pedestrian over-bridge collapsed outside Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, injuring 23 people.
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