LET THESE GAMES BEGIN
Robert Craddock
IF you really think the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games don’t matter, you haven’t met the athlete madly preparing for 10 events. Or should we say 10 events rolled into one.
Cedric Dubler will represent Australia in the decathlon, the supreme staminasapper of long jump, high jump, shot put, discus, javelin, pole vault as well as the 100m, 400m, 110m hurdles and 1500m. Dubler, who finished 14th at the Rio Olympics, admits no matter how much time he spends training, it’s never enough. He could always do more.
Last year he gave away his job working at a Brisbane sports store to stretch his finances to the limit and train fulltime for the Games.
“Financially it is very tough but I still love it,’’ Dubler said.
“Track and field in general, there is not much funding involved or sponsorship interest in the sport.
“Medical bills and equipment bills add up. Poles and javelins are very expensive. Athletics Australia and the QAS have been supportive and helped out a lot.
“The Olympics are the greatest but the Commonwealth still has 70 nations involved. I see it as a competition with the Brits mainly.
“For a lot of athletes who are not at the Olympic standard, it gives them an introduction to the world stage.’’
There’s only one Cedric Dubler but there’s hundreds like him at the Commonwealth Games. This is the event’s eternal beauty since it was first held in Hamilton, Canada in 1930 and travelled through 21 cities in nine countries en route to the Gold Coast.
No, the Commonwealth Games are not the Olympics. Nor is the Commonwealth what it once was as a
league of nations, never mind a sporting event.
And you cannot deny the Games are being gang-tackled by a raft of local and international sports which are beamed into our loungerooms in a way never imagined back in 1982 when the Games visited Brisbane and had an all-consuming national presence.
These days, the sporting world does not stop for the Commonwealth Games so much as breeze through it.
But sport is ultimately all about the stories and the Games have them aplenty in an event which will be watched by around 1.5 billion people and have an economic impact of $2 billion on the Gold Coast region.
As well as Olympic champions such as Sally Pearson, there are a legion of battlers and scrappers, from squash to weightlifting, with exotic, often untold tales of sacrifice.
And it’s the unscripted moments that often matter most, like the hockey training session at the Glasgow Games four years ago where Australian duo Jayde Taylor and Brooke Peris grabbed a selfie while being photo-bombed by Queen Elizabeth.
Taylor was a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medal winner but admits she is more famous for capturing her “Queen and I’’ photo.
With top women’s sporting talent being deluged with offers from AFL, rugby league, rugby union, soccer and cricket, the Games remind us that the ancient disciplines of running and swimming still have their time to shine.
In future years, we will sure- ly be talking about Olympic heroes who felt a flame ignite within while watching events at the Gold Coast.
“That’s what happened to me,’’ dual Olympic gold medal winner Susie O’Neill said.
“The Brisbane Commonwealth Games in 1982 were massive for me. That’s what really sparked my interest. I kept scrapbooks of the big events and kept them for ages.’’
Raelene Boyle, a seventimes Commonwealth Games gold medal winner, concedes the lustre of the Games may have been diminished by the rise of world championships – indoor and outdoor – since her day but she thinks enough of them to head down from her home in Noosa to watch.
“I would like to see Sally Pearson run,’’ Boyle said.
“I can’t believe how well she came back from basically nothing. How she shattered her arm. How can she get up and face those hurdles?
“I will watch it closely on television and I hope it helps a lot of kids get involved with our sport because that, basically, is what they are for.’’