India should not rush for Olympics: Coe

After a successful Commonwealth Games, India should wait for a while before taking a final call on hosting an Olympic Games, feels legendary British runner Sebastian Coe.

"I am sure they will want to look at that, but I'm not sure that it should be quite yet. There had been strong suggestions that Delhi would bid for the 2020 Olympics, though that has yet to be officially confirmed," said Coe, chairman of 2012 London Olympics Organising Committee.

"This was never going to be an easy process. Delivering a Games is complicated, but I think that there is an opportunity for India to build on this. Ordinary Indians are very proud the Games are here and so they should be. This has been a big moment for India," he added.

Coe, who is here on an observation visit, also praised the facilities, including the Athletes' Village.

"I take my lead from the athletes. I spent a lot of time in the Village yesterday and I spoke to a lot of different people from a lot of different countries and actually they are saying a lot of good things.

"I am not going to sit here and say that it (Delhi CWG) hasn't been without its challenges but again you take your lead from the athletes. They are the people that matter and they were reporting that the village was pretty damn good," Coe was told as saying by the Guardian.

Coe, who had won 1500m gold in Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, also has no doubt that the sporting infrastructure that has come up for the Games, is going to be a rich legacy for the country.

"One of the areas we can work quite closely is on legacy, on the structure that comes out of the Olympic Park. In India the legacy was always going to be a challenge in sport, simply because cricket is a religion. But look at the structural legacy. People who live here say that journeys that used to take an hour and a half are now taking 20 minutes.

"There are new flyovers, metros, railways, and the new airport. The structural legacy is quite profound if you see the way the city has developed in the last five years," he said.

However, Coe was concerned about the lack of spectators' interest in the Delhi Games, few events of which are being held in front of empty stands.

"We will not get away with empty stadiums in London, it's as simple as that. This is not a security event with a sporting overlay.

"It's that balance between people coming to London, feeling that they're in a secure environment, but that they're not locked down. And you want them to come back again," he said.