HYDERABAD (India), Oct 25: Senior world sports officials on Saturday backed New Delhi’s bid to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games, saying India has demonstrated it is capable of staging the event.

“I would like to send a message to our colleagues in the Commonwealth. Trust Asia, trust India, trust me. India can host the Commonwealth Games 2010,” said Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah, Kuwait’s energy minister who also is the president of the Olympic Council of Asia.

Kuwait’s comes ahead of the final vote in Jamaica on Nov. 13 by the 72-nation Commonwealth Games federation to decide whether New Delhi or the Canadian city of Hamilton, Ontario, should host world’s second largest multi-sport event after the Olympics in 2010.

Sheik Ahmed’s comments came after Friday’s opening ceremony of the first Afro-Asian games in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

A dazzling ceremony featuring 12,000 performers including African dancers, Chinese Shaolin monks and traditional Indian entertainers marked the inauguration of the games.

“How wonderful to be here at the birth of such a wonderful idea of Afro-Asian Games and carry it over to the Commonwealth games,” said John Myrddin, vice president of International Weightlifting Federation.

“I know you are capable of doing it. It is the hour of India to have the Commonwealth Games,” he said.

Top officials from the Commonwealth Games Federation were also present at the ceremony.—APP/AP