LIFE’S BACK ON TRACK FOR BRUCE ALMIGHTY
Peerless caller strives for personal best
BRUCE McAvaney was only a few days out from leaving on the overseas trip he feared might never happen again when a hint of panic struck him and his wife Anne almost out of nowhere.
His passport was missing!
The broadcaster who has provided the soundtrack to so many of our greatest sporting moments had not been overseas since attending the Japan Cup in November 2019, just a couple of months before the emergence of Covid-19 changed everything.
No one then could have imagined the stark reality of closed international and state borders, lengthy lockdowns and sporting events delayed, postponed or played in empty stadiums.
Like most of us, McAvaney has not needed a passport for 2½ years.
His excitement last week at getting the chance to attend the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, as a
precursor to calling the athletics for Channel 7 at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, meant he did not give his passport a second thought.
That is until his wife delicately broached the subject.
“Annie, my wife, is a very good organiser and (last Monday week) she said to me: ‘Macca, I am feeling a bit sick,’” McAvaney says.
“I said to her: ‘Why’s that, love?’ She said: ‘I can’t find your passport … When was the last time you travelled?’”
The passport finally turned up after digging through drawers and cupboards less than 72 hours before he and his daughter Alex were scheduled to board a plane on the first leg of their journey.
It was nowhere near the excitement he and Raelene Boyle had expressed on that magical September night 22 years ago, when Cathy Freeman won Olympic gold in the 400m in Sydney. But, in the context of what has happened during the pandemic, it wasn’t all that far removed.
He was unsure he would ever call another major international event live.
“Two things I was hoping to have the opportunity to do again was to put those headphones on and to be close to the finishing line, but also that we would have people surrounding us and roaring and urging and barracking, and that’s what we will have again in Birmingham,” he says.
Having played a key role in Channel 7’s award-winning broadcast of the delayed Tokyo Olympics last year – albeit from a studio in Australia – he cannot wait for the XXII Commonwealth Games to kick off in Birmingham in the early hours of Friday.
“I am pinching myself,” he said. “It is going to be an absolute joy and it is going to feel like old times for me, like it was in Gold Coast in 2018, the last time I have been to something like this.
“I didn’t really think in my heart of hearts that I would get this opportunity again, so you can imagine the enthusiasm.”
RICH TRADITION
Birmingham will be McAvaney’s fifth Commonwealth Games and he quickly rattles off the magical moments that have made this event such a huge part of the Australian sporting psyche.
He went to Edinburgh as a general reporter for Channel 10 in 1986 and called the Manchester Games for Channel 7 in 2002.
McAvaney called the track and field for 3AW in Melbourne in 2006, alongside the late Clinton Grybas, as Channel 9 had the TV rights.
He was calling again for Seven at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
“Many Commonwealth Games moments are as rich as Olympic moments,” he said.
“If you think track and field, you think Jamaica, you think Kenya, you think England, and you think
Uganda and all of those African countries, including South Africa with their strengths.
“Athletics, particularly on the track, is a very strong competition. In the Commonwealth Games, the 100m finals are not far behind (the Olympics). You don’t have the Americans there, but you have just about everyone else there.
“I don’t devalue the Commonwealth Games in any way, shape or form. I love them. I love what they mean to us.”
McAvaney noted how they so often played a part in the birth of new champions, as well as the swan song of famous careers.
“When you are thinking about Raelene Boyle, we know she won three Olympic silver medals and seven Commonwealth Games gold medals. But I reckon it is Brisbane (in 1982) that you think about first with her,” he says.
“Marjorie Jackson won seven Commonwealth Games gold medals and two Olympic gold medals. But her grand finale came when she retired at the end of the Vancouver Games (in 1954).
“As far as the launching pads go, we had Hayley Lewis and Catherine Freeman (in 1990). Ian Thorpe had gone to the world swimming championships in 1998 but it was really later that year in Kuala Lumpur where the whole of Australia and the world came to know him.”
BRUCE’S BIRMINGHAM FORM GUIDE
McAvaney says Birmingham’s integration of the para and ablebodied programs provides a
distinction that will make this year’s Commonwealth Games a wondrous event.
“The Olympics can’t do that,” he says. “They are just way too big, but we can do it in the Commonwealth Games.
“That combination of someone like Kurt Fearnley in the past, and Maddie de Rozario in the present just adds to the richness, then there’s Ellie Cole in her swan song.
“I am looking forward to the collective Australian team of ablebodied and para athletes and seeing how successful we can be.”
McAvaney’s snapshot of his most anticipated moments are many and varied.
“In a swimming sense, I am fascinated to see a couple of clashes,” he says. “Mollie O’Callaghan is taking on Emma McKeon. Mollie won three gold medals at the world championships, while Emma sat it out.”
“Ariarne Titmus has a young Canadian girl, Summer McIntosh, swimming against her and that battle is going to be fascinating.
“There’s netball and the fierce competition between Australia and England, New Zealand and Jamaica.
“In track and field, from an international sense, it is the men’s and women’s sprints.
“In the women’s sprints, there is every chance Shelly-Ann Fraser
Pryce and Elaine Thompson (Herah) will both be there. One is arguably the greatest female sprinter of all time and the other is the second greatest, and I am not sure which is which.
“Neither of these women has won an individual gold medal at the Commonwealth Games and they have won all of these gold medals at the Olympic Games and world championships. The battle between these Jamaican women will be one to watch.
“In the middle-distance races, we’ve had a couple of golden periods in Australia. But I don’t think we’ve ever had a deeper group of men and women at 800m and 1500m before.
“Peter Bol and Joseph Deng are quite capable of both getting medals at the Commonwealth Games.
“Ollie Hoare can win the gold medal in the 1500m and, if he doesn’t, ‘Stewie’ (McSweyn) has got a chance. We’ve only won the 1500m once (at the Commonwealth Games) and that was Herb Elliott in 1958.
“Then the battle between Eleanor Patterson and Nicola Olyslagers (McDermott) in the women’s high jump will be a highlight.”
THE FUTURE
McAvaney believes Birmingham 2022 and Melbourne 2026 can give the Commonwealth Games the renewed impetus the event requires.
“The regional idea of Victoria is superb as the infrastructure will be lasting,” he says.
“It will give those big regional venues such as Geelong and Ballarat facilities that are going to last 40 to 50 years, and not only encourage people to compete and perform but give them the facilities to do it in.
“There is a lot of conjecture about the long-term future of the Commonwealth Games. But if I said to you, ‘I’ve got this idea, why don’t we get the 70-odd nations and territories to gather every four years for a sporting festival, let’s call it the Commonwealth Games … it’s not the Olympics, but it’s a stepping stone to the Olympics’ … I reckon you’d say it’s a great idea.”
He said Brisbane’s hosting of the 1982 Commonwealth Games was a seminal moment in the city’s history. In 2032 – half a century on – that city will host the Olympic Games.
McAvaney does not know what he will be doing when Melbourne’s 2026 Commonwealth Games are scheduled, but that year would mark his own half century in sports broadcasting.
He recently recommitted to Channel 7 until the end of 2024, with no decision yet on which network will broadcast the Paris Olympics in two years.
Having been inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame last month, he could be excused for casting a look in the rear-view mirror, but he says has too many things to look forward to.
A conversation McAvaney had with Robert de Castella just before the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics has always stuck with him.
“I said to Deek: ‘Do you feel that you have to win an Olympic gold medal to feel like you are completely fulfilled as an athlete?’ He said: ‘No, what I have to do is to fulfil my potential, and if I do that I will feel complete.’
“I have thought about that a lot over the years and it has been my philosophy a bit.
“It is less about the accolades and less about the achievements. It is more about trying to do the best possible job, and hopefully to let the scoreboard speak for itself.
“When you get to 69, and you have done some hard yards, it’s sometimes not as easy as it is at other times. But I do feel there is a genuine belief that I am still striving to improve and I feel like I can. I don’t think anyone is truly satisfied.”