HEALING GAMES
Australia’s antidote to cricket scandal
F ROM sandpaper and scandals to sandy beaches and sandals — there’s nothing quite like a spot of interpretive dance to end one conversation and start another.
For that reason, the Australians must be feeling a deeper affection than most for this ageing monarch of sport, the Commonwealth Games.
How they have collectively wished to undo that silly plan to swing a cricket ball and how fortunate they are that the Games have docked on their Gold Coast, allowing a quick opportunity to rediscover a little sporting pride.
Put on a good show, win medals, hope a successful event might stifle the embarrassment of a calamitous one. Who, after all the tears, doesn’t want to move on?
And so to the opening ceremony yesterday, when the anger of the past fortnight was replaced with the usual messages of aspiration that precede sporting festivals these days.
There was a divided world reconciled as one, depictions of Australian unity with its aboriginal populations, and all manner of surf- culture representations, from a giant sand pit in the middle of the Carrara Stadium to a parade of lifeguards around its periphery.
All quite watchable, if orgies of symbolism are your thing, but it is an interesting aspect of the next 11 days that Australia’s ego is not the only thing chasing rehabilitation. There is also the very notion of the Commonwealth Games itself. The title alone serves as an awkward reminder of British imperialism and the sport is often derided as a little tired as well.
Indeed, when Usain Bolt said the words ‘a bit s***’ at Glasgow 2014, there were plenty who doubted his claim to be talking solely about the standard of the weather.
All of which misses a few key points and, to that end, it was interesting to hear this week from David Grevemberg, the Games CEO. Over the course of half an hour, he spoke to Sportsmail about why the Commonwealth Games still means something, and why it should.
One fascinating point he raised is the Games federation will not take its event to countries with questionable records on human rights. He wouldn’t walk into a politically dubious clinch by pointing fingers publicly at FIFA and the IOC, but it was easy to draw conclusions — World Cups in Russia and Qatar? A Winter Olympics in Sochi? What about the Rio 2016 Olympics, a mess of broken promises, corruption, bankruptcy and abandoned venues?
By contrast, when Durban failed to keep to its deadlines amid growing concerns over its funding, they were stripped of the 2022 Commonwealth Games late in the day, with the staging rights given to Birmingham.
The Commonwealth Games had their own crisis of confidence after the corruption of Delhi 2010 but the rethink that has followed has been impressive. They accept they cannot be everything that the Olympics is, but they do try to be some of the things the Olympics is not.
Their schedule has weaved in para sport, women are contesting the same number of medals as men for the first time, and a study in Glasgow this week spoke of busy venues four years on.
The standard of the gymnastics, swimming and athletics won’t be the same as the Olympics, but a reduced field of nations has always had its moments.
Allan Wells’ dead heat with Mike McFarlane. Roger Bannister v John Landy in the ‘Miracle Mile’. Barry McGuigan’s win in 1978, and what it did in Belfast during the Troubles. Weightlifter David Katoatau winning the first gold for Kiribati in 2014, then warning his Pacific island might sink if global warming is not addressed.
For those reasons, and the very notion that great sport can happen in any context, the Commonwealth Games do still matter. Luckily for Australia.