Victoria’s withdrawal as 2026 host should be a catalyst for a sustainable way of staging major tournaments and meetingsThe decision by Victoria’s government to pull out of hosting the Commonwealth Games issues a broader challenge to sports leaders, governments, but also athletes and citizens around the world. This crisis goes beyond the growing indifference to the purpose of the event, originally founded as the Empire Games in 1930. The Olympics faces a similar struggle with just two bids for the 2024 Summer Games, with Paris and Los Angeles awarded 2024 and 2028 respectively, and only Brisbane bidding for 2032.In the race for the 2022 Winter Olympics, at least five potential host cities, all western democracies, withdrew from the bidding process...
A nine-goal win averts disaster for Australia, but their gold medal rival Jamaica represent a wider threat to the Diamonds’ long-held supremacyBruised, battered and wounded – not in body, but in pride – the Diamonds hobbled into Saturday’s Commonwealth Games semi final against the host nation England. The historic loss to Jamaica cast its shadow over the upcoming match. A loss was not necessarily a concern in itself – in 2015 the Diamonds lost a pool match to New Zealand and went on to win the gold medal match against the same opposition.But a loss to Jamaica was emblematic of a new world order. It was the first time Australia had lost to Jamaica at a major tournament. No longer...
Australia’s quiet achiever needs one more Commonwealth Games gold to surpass Susie O’Neill, Leisel Jones and Ian ThorpeWith the benefit of hindsight, it may seem that Australian swimmer Emma McKeon was always destined for greatness. The 28-year-old was born into swimming royalty: her father, Ron McKeon, is a former Olympian and four-time Commonwealth Games champion in middle-distance freestyle, while mum Susie McKeon and uncle Rob Woodhouse also swam for Australia. For decades the McKeon family have operated a swimming school in the Illawarra, and McKeon junior was in the water before she could walk.But McKeon’s glittering career – three days into the 2022 Commonwealth Games she is on the brink of all-time greatness – was almost over before it began....
The Games remain an uneasy celebration of ‘common values’ with nations the British empire once exploitedThe Commonwealth Games ought to be prefaced with one of those warnings about outdated attitudes, like the kind Disney have attached to the beginning of its old movies. They could run it before the opening ceremony, right before they bring on Simon Le Bon. “These Games were predicated on the mistreatment of people and cultures.”The first were held in Hamilton in 1930, but have roots that go back beyond that into the Victorian era. In the official timeline, it was an Anglican clergyman called J Astley Cooper who first floated the idea for a “pan-Britannic festival of culture and sport” in a series of public...
The Games found a great host city in Birmingham but are still searching for a new meaning and purposeIt all started with a row. When a spindly 20-year-old from Vancouver called Percy Williams won the Olympics 100m final in Amsterdam in 1928, it was such an improbable result he was made to wait for his medal while the organisers tried to find a Canadian flag to run up the pole.The one they found was so small that Canadian officials complained to the International Olympic Committee. That wasn’t all they were unhappy about. The Canadians were offended the band did not seem to know their anthem either and, by the way, the US team were allowed to practise on the track...