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...
The International Olympic Committee wants to find a pathway for Russians to compete in Paris despite the war in UkrainePicture the mise-en-scène in Paris next year, on the opening day of the Olympics. At the final of the 10m air rifle shooting mixed team event, the Russian Sergey Kamenskiy presses his eye to his gun, squeezes the trigger, and – a millisecond later – is triumphantly celebrating gold. Meanwhile 1,500 miles away in Kyiv, rubble from homes and hospitals continues to pile up, along with the bodies of the dead.Far fetched? Hardly. The International Olympic Committee is determined to establish a pathway for Russians to compete in Paris. And it won’t be deterred by widespread condemnation from Ukrainian athletes, or...
As the chess furore between Carlsen and Niemann rolls on, we take a look at some enduring disputes in sportNot since Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit enthralled 62 million viewers has chess captured mainstream attention to such an extent.Last month the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, world No 1 and already the “rock star” of chess – see GQ profiles and multimillion‑pound apparel collaborations – accused the American Hans Niemann of cheating after the 19-year-old ended Carlsen’s over-the-board 53-match winning sequence. Continue reading...
The 2012 Games were over budget while existing stadiums like Crystal Palace have been allowed to become dilapidated relicsThis summer marks the 10th anniversary of the London 2012 Olympic Games. It is customary here to suggest that decade has simply flown by, that the years have passed in a blink. In reality this already feels like an event from a different timeline altogether.It’s not the actual Games, which will remain a wonderful thing, tenderly guarded. It’s more the staging. Looking back there is something jarring about the uniformly joyful and empowered response to the opening ceremony, with its ragbag of nostalgia and self-mythologising. Kenneth Branagh pretending to be Brunel. Musical Youth playing croquet. Roger Moore inside a phone box surfing...
Governing bodies are using weasel words, instead of the plain ones needed: invasion, war, murderEarly last Thursday, overcome by the desire to do something, anything, however petty, to try to fight off that sense of desperate futility, I started sending out emails to the sports federations who had events scheduled in Russia this year asking if they were going to cancel them. There were already reports that Uefa was talking about moving the Champions League final, later that day the FIA announced it was cancelling the Russian GP, and Rugby Europe that it was calling off Russia’s upcoming match against Georgia. A lot of the Olympic sports, though, were moving a little more slowly.Fina, which was due to hold two...