Commonwealth Games begins with colourful opening ceremony
A glittering opening ceremony marked the beginning of the 2022 Commonwealth Games at Birmingham on Thursday.
More than 5,000 athletes are primed for action in the English city of Birmingham from Friday at a Commonwealth Games lacking several track and field stars but still boasting elite performers.
Competitors from 72 nations and territories -- many of which are former British colonies -- will be vying for medals in 19 sports over a jam-packed 11 days in the Midlands.
Away from the marquee athletics and swimming events, women’s Twenty20 cricket makes its debut and 3x3 basketball will feature for the first time while sedate lawn bowls is a fixture. There is an integrated para sports programme in some events.
The Games, held every four years, are often criticised as a quirky sporting relic but was launched in style at Thursday’s opening ceremony, headlined by 1980s pop band Duran Duran, formed in Birmingham.
Sporting power house australia have topped the medals table at every Games since 1990 except in 2014, when England finished top in Glasgow -- the last time the event was held on British soil.
Earlier, Javelin world champion Kelsey-lee Barber’s bid to also win the Commonwealth title was dealt a blow Thursday, with the Australian testing positive for Covid-19, team officials said.
Barber, who claimed her second world crown last week at Eugene, Oregon in the United States, tested positive at the Australian team camp ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this week.
But with the women’s javelin final not until
Sporting powerhouse Australia have topped the medals table at every Games since 1990 except in 2014, when England finished top in Glasgow
Aug.7, she could still compete.
“Kelsey-lee Barber is not out (of the Games),” the team’s high-performance manager Andrew Faichney told Australian media.
“I have to reconfirm, but I think the organising committee has said that if an athlete is well and healthy enough, then they are going to be able to compete, and so that is what we are working through.”
Barber, who won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics, retained her world title with a throw of 66.91 metres, ahead of American Kara Winger and Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi.
She was considered a strong favourite in Birmingham after winning bronze and silver at the past two editions of the Commonwealth Games.
Faichney also told local media that Olympic bronze medal-winning decathlete Ash Moloney would miss the Commonwealth Games.
Moloney was forced to withdraw from the world championships last week due to a knee injury and has not recovered.
Separately, a symbolic representation of an aerial map of the West Midlands region’s road and canal network embossed on them will be a key feature of the gold, silver and bronze medals that will be awarded to the 1,875 medal winners of the 22nd Commonwealth Games starting here on Thursday.
The gold, silver, and bronze medals are being made in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and have been designed by three students from the School of Jewellery in Birmingham. The three students -- Amber Alys, Francesca Wilcox and Catarina Rodrigues Caeiro have also designed the ribbons and boxes that will be awarded to the winners along with the medal.
For the exquisite, jewel-like medals, the designers took inspiration from the journey the athletes take to reach their goal of competing at the Games, and so embossed areas, symbolising an aerial map of the host region’s road and canal network, have been included.
The medal and ribbon have been designed with all athletes competing in the 19 sports and eight Para sports in mind.
The medal has been created so that it is textured and has a tactile quality, so all athletes, and especially those with a visual impairment, can feel the design.
The ribbon attached to the medal is also adjustable, so that it sits comfortably when worn, no matter the height of the athlete or Para athlete wearing it.
In all 1,875 medals are up for grabs across all the sporting events, and for the first time ever in a global, multi-sport event, there are more women’s events than men’s -- 136 against 134.
Being presented with brilliantly designed medals will definitely add to the joy of the medal winners.
Meanwhile, India’s Commonwealth Games ambitions have been badly hit by the last-minute withdrawal of Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra but they still have high hopes of gold in several sports including boxing and badminton.