When the Commonwealth Games get under way in Delhi this weekend they will be the first I have missed in 40 years, thanks to a pending knee operation.

"Aren’t you glad not to be going to this one?" is a question I am inevitably and frequently asked.

Actually no.

I’d love to be there despite the dire warnings of them being a chaotic mess, of being stricken with dengue fever or kidnapped or blown to smithereens by terrorists.

While I am well aware of the risks and the dangers, I also know that the likelihood of a major catastrophe is remote - and if something of this nature did happen I’d want to be there to report it, as I was the atrocity that befell the Munich Olympics in 1972. It goes with the territory.

Having survived the mayhem that was the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974 – and believe me it really was in the jungle, just outside Kinshasa the crime-ridden capital of then Zaire (whose President Mobutu publicly hanged 40 of the city’s most notorious criminals before the Ali-Foreman fight as warning to would-be muggers and pickpockets) - a touch of Delhi belly would seem a small price to pay.

This is not to make light of the problems that have surrounded the shambolic build-up to these Games and for that I believe a lax Commonwealth Games Federation are as much to blame as the corruption to which the Indian government seems to have turned an uncaring eye.

But I doubt whether Delhi will be as horrendous as most expect once the running, jumping, splashing and sploshing get under way.

Delhi 2010 won’t be perfect, but it will be be all right on the night

Such sporting happenings always are.

When we look at global events through history the anticipation has been far worse than the realisation.

"There will be those who die,” the late Chris Brasher famously prophesied in print before the Mexico Olympics because of the rarified air at high altitude.

Well no-one did, At least, not any competitor.

Scores of demonstrating students were killed beforehand, machine-gunned from helicopters by militia while protesting in the square called the Place of the Three Cultures.

But that was another story, and one which the International Olympic Committee, led by dictatorial president Avery Brundage, shamefully underplayed at the time, as it could be argued they did the 1972 Munich tragedy, halting those Games for just one day after the massacre of 11 Israelis by the Black September Palestinian terrorists.

I recall at the time, as a young reporter watching the tragic events unfold, and asking the Evening Standard’s seasoned Cockney scribe Walter Bartleman, a former Army tank major, what to do.

"My advice to you, son," he muttered, "is keep, your bleedin’ head down."

The reason I do not think there will be another terrorist attack in Delhi is precisely because one is expected, as it has been at every significant international sports meet since Munich.

A top security adviser to the IOC once pointed out to me that terrorism is about the element of surprise. Militants strike where it is least expected, not where it is.

Of course, this does not lessen the necessity for the tightest security or preclude the odd nutter or splinter group doing something daft.

The best security in the world cannot cater for that, as witnessed at the Atlanta Olympics of 1996.

But security in Delhi will be paramount. as it was in Melbourne, Manchester and every Commonwealth Games in the last three decades.

There is also a misconception about the "Friendly Games",  that they are simply just a sporting sideshow, a village fete free of the sort of political meddling and fiscal and sporting scandals associated with big brother Olympics.

Not so. Remember the financially-stricken 1986 Games in Edinburgh, which had to be embarrassingly saved from humiliation by the intervention of that awful crook Robert Maxwell, and, were then overshadowed by the boycott by 32 nations - mainly from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean - who withdrew because of Britain’s links with South Africa?

And those in Victoria, Canada, in 1994 which were preceded by a doping scandal which rocked the world of athletics when English middle distance runner Diane Modahl (pictured), the reigning Commonwealth Games 800m champion, was sent home after it was revealed she had tested positive following an earlier event in Portugal.

The talented and popular Modahl had been something of a model athlete and the ensuing rumpus caused Sebastian Coe to declare to a group of us: "If someone like Diane is on drugs then there is no hope for our sport." As it happened Modahl was later exonerated after lengthy litigation - her plea that the sample she provided had deteriorated while awaiting testing being accepted.

The Commonwealth Games have always had their share of drama, and Delhi won’t be an exception.

But I suspect after all preceding controversies, there will be a sense of relief and anti-climax when they happen, and that all involved will return home safe and sound, better for the experience, whatever that may be.

And at least the world has been made aware - albeit through the lurid tales of gloom and doom - that they are actually taking place, and for that I suppose the Games Federation, the hosts and the TV networks should be grateful.

For the Games have appeared to be dying of disinterest, both among the public and the elite performers.

But inevitably Delhi will be remembered as The Shame Games and whether after Glasgow in 2014 they will have a viable future is another debate.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire