Triathletes and bowlers

Mumps and broken leg aside, Kiwis set for Friendly Games

Ton the Gold Coast he 21st Commonwealth Games will open for business today. New Zealand’s Gold Coast campaign began with swimmer Sophie Pascoe carrying the flag into Carrara Stadium late last night. It will continue when Jo Edwards (women’s singles) and Ali Forsyth, Paul Girdler and debutant Mike Nagy (men’s triples) deliver their opening hands in the lawn bowls at Broadbeach around 11am (New Zealand time).

Triathletes Andrea Hewitt, Nicole van der Kaay and Rebecca Spence will vie for the country’s first medal around Southport Broadwater Parklands.

The venue is described on the Games website as “a place to connect, energise and relax in the heart of the Gold Coast’s CBD”. It’s hard to imagine much of that occurring as they thrash their way through a 750m swim, 20km cycle and 5km run.

New Zealand will be represented by 250 athletes in 18 sports at this edition — including athletics, swimming and bowls para disciplines — making it the country’s largest Commonwealth Games team.

Beach volleyball and women’s sevens debut on the programme, while basketball returns after a 12-year gap.

The Games are contested by 71 nations, most of whom come from former outposts of the British Empire.

The event has come together with relative ease — bar the odd exception.

From a New Zealand perspective, sevens player Ruby Tuigetting the mumps has seen the team quarantined on the Sunshine Coast with further medical checks underway.

A notch up the scale, wrestler Michelle Montague has been ruled out of competition after breaking her leg training in Canada over the weekend.

On the international front, an India boxing team doctor was found in breach of the event’s “no needle policy” by a Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) court after failing to store syringes properly.

The needles, which are banned without medical exemptions as a way to fight doping, were discovered in a plastic bottle last weekend.

The matter was not defined as an anti-doping violation, so resulted in a written reprimand.

Betting agency Sportsbet has opened a book on further Games gaffes. Odds on a wrong anthem sit at A$2.25; the wrong flag getting raised at an event is A$4; and the pool turning from blue to green is at A$10. Punters get a A$16 return for every dollar invested if there is a blackout at an event.

The Commonwealth Games have provided magical New Zealand sporting moments through the years — John Walker unsuccessfully chasing Tanzanian Filbert Bayi down the home straight in the world recordbreaking 1500m of Christchurch 1974; archer Neroli Fairhall winning gold in 1982 in Brisbane despite her paraplegia; 14-year-old gymnast Nikki Jenkins becoming New Zealand’s youngest gold medallist vaulting at Auckland in 1990.

Medals tend to weigh lighter than those of an Olympics or world championships in the majority of sports, outside rugby sevens, netball and bowls. More generous selection policies and the absence of the majority of Europe, East Asia, the Middle East, South America and the United States also provide a point of difference. But so does the emphasis on inclusiveness and accessibility for all, encapsulated by para swimmer Pascoe’s presence with the flag.

New Zealand athletes also get practice for the Olympics through a multisport event broadcast to a crosssection of the world comprising at least 1.5 billion people.

They are often referred to as “The Friendly Games”, maintaining sporting and cultural relations under the official feelgood banner of “humanity, equality, destiny”.

Perhaps the world needs more of these sorts of Games — not to mention sun, surf and sand — to begin.