The Queen’s Baton is passed on to Nadia Ahmed in Bordesley, Birmingham
The 2022 Commonwealth Games begin in Birmingham tonight with the opening ceremony at the redeveloped Alexander Stadium, which will play host to athletics when it starts next week.
Just over 10 years on from the memorable opening ceremony to the London Olympics, the creative team behind the show are expected to highlight the talent and diversity of the West Midlands in a performance that will be around three hours long. At its heart will be the Parade of Nations, as participating athletes from countries across the Commonwealth walk into the stadium under their flag. Diver Jack Laugher and weightlifter Emily Campbell have been chosen as the flag bearers for the host nation, England.
More than 5,000 athletes will compete across 20 different sports for 280 gold medals over the next 10 days. These Games will be the first global multi-sport event to have more women’s medals than men’s, and will see the biggest integrated programme of para-sport yet.
Follow all the latest updates from the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony below.
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Will Australia dominate again?
Australia will be looking to pick up where they left off on the Gold Coast in 2018, when they produced a dominant performance on home soil to top the medal table, finishing with 80 gold medals and 198 overall.
The Gold Coast saw some outstanding performances from the Australians, with Mitch Larkin picking up five golds in the pool, the men’s team pursuit squad breaking a then world record to win gold and Ken Hanson becoming the country’s oldest Commonwealth gold medallist at the age of 68 in the B6/B7/B8 para lawn bowls.
And with the inclusion of Women’s T20 cricket – in which Australia are the No. 1 side in the world – Birmingham 2022 is set to be another success filled Commonwealth Games for the competitors from down under.
Birmingham 2022 ready to put on a show amid uncertain future for Commonwealth Games
The 2022 Commonwealth Games will begin in Birmingham on Thursday, but for a long time they didn’t have an interested bidder at all. The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) called an emergency meeting two months before the application deadline in March 2014 as it searched for a viable host willing to foot the bill.
Eventually the Canadian city of Edmonton and the South African city of Durban came forward with last-minute proposals, and when Edmonton later withdrew over a lack of funding, Durban was anointed. Nearly a century after Johannesburg had lost the right to host for refusing to accept non-white athletes, the possibility of finally seeing a Commonwealth Games in Africa was a potential PR coup, but Durban’s financial plan didn’t add up and it was stripped of the Games after a double-check of the accounts.
So, in 2017 in the wake of the Brexit referendum, the British government spotted an opportunity for some good cheer and flag-waving, and decided the £800m cost was worth paying. Despite Birmingham saving the day, there remain concerns about the lack of enthusiasm for hosting an eye-wateringly expensive sports mega-event with no guarantee of a return on investment, as well as doubts around its place in the 21st century.
Birmingham 2022 ready to put on a show amid uncertain future for Commonwealth Games
The Commonwealth is fighting for meaning in the 21st century and its Games lacks host cities prepared to foot an eye-watering bill, but Birmingham can still provide a platform for great sport over the next 10 days
A bumper schedule of sport
Birmingham promises a jam-packed line-up with some new sports and disciplines added to the mix.
World T20 champions Australia get the women’s cricket fixtures under way against India in one of the new additions to the schedule, while basketball 3×3 and mixed synchronised diving will also be contested for the first time.
Birmingham also boasts the largest para sport programme, with eight sports on offer, including wheelchair basketball 3×3, which also makes its Commonwealth debut.
Birmingham takes centre stage
The 2022 Commonwealth Games get underway tonight as Birmingham prepares to welcome 72 nations across two weeks of action.
The 2022 edition of the Games sees the midlands city take centre stage as it hosts the event for the very first time. This will be the seventh time a UK city has hosted since the inception of the Games in 1930, with Glasgow being the most recent such host back in 2014.
Sport will take place across the region, with events staged at venues including Arena Birmingham, the National Exhibition Centre, Alexander Stadium, Edgbaston and the new Sandwell Aquatics Centre.
Coventry and Wolverhampton are among the other West Midlands locations set to host events, while the track cycling will be staged at Lee Valley VeloPark in London.
Manchester fondly remembers hosting the 2002 edition of the Commonwealth Games which helped revitalise rundown parts of the city and increase tourism to the regin. No doubt the Birmingham organisers will be hoping for a similar effect this time around too.
Commonwealth Games schedule by sport
Athletics and Para Athletics: Tuesday, August 2nd–Sunday, August 7th
Badminton: Friday, July 29th–Monday, August 8th
Basketball and Wheelchair Basketball: Friday, July 29th–Tuesday, August 2nd
Beach Volleyball: Saturday, July 30th–Sunday, August 7th
Boxing: Friday, July 29th–Thursday, August 4th, Saturday, August 6th–Sunday, August 7th
Cricket: Friday, July 29th-Sunday, July 31st, Tuesday, August 2nd–Thursday, August 4th, Saturday, August 6th–Sunday, August 7th
Cycling–Mountain Bike: Wednesday, August 3rd
Cycling–Road Race: Sunday, August 7th
Cycling–Time Trial: Thursday, August 4th
Cycling–Track & Para Track: Friday, July 29th–Monday, August 1st
Diving: Thursday, August 4th–Monday, August 8th
Gymnastics–Artistic: Friday, July 29th–Tuesday, August 2nd
Gymnastics–Rhythmic:Thursday, August 4th–Saturday, August 6th
Hockey: Friday, July 29th–Monday, August 8th
Judo: Monday, August 1st–Wednesday, August 3th
Lawn Bowls and Para Lawn Bowls: Friday, July 29th–Saturday, August 6th
Marathon: Saturday, July 30th
Netball: Friday, July 29th–Sunday, August 7th
Para Powerlifting: Thursday, August 4th
Rugby Sevens: Friday, July 29th–Sunday, July 31st
Squash: Friday, July 29th–Monday, August 8th
Swimming and Para Swimming: Friday, July 29th–Wednesday, August 3rd
Table Tennis and Para Table Tennis: Friday, July 29th–Monday, August 8th
Triathlon and Para Triathlon: Friday, July 29th, Sunday, July 31st
Weightlifting: Saturday, July 30th–Wednesday, August 3rd
Wrestling: Friday, August 5th–Saturday, August 6th
Birmingham 2022 to get under way with Commonwealth Games opening ceremony
The 22nd Commonwealth Games will start in Birmingham later on Thursday.
The opening ceremony begins at 8pm at the Alexander Stadium and will be attended by the Prince of Wales.
It comes almost 10 years to the day since the critically-acclaimed opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics.
Birmingham 2022 to get under way with Commonwealth Games opening ceremony
The ceremony starts at 8pm on Thursday night
Steven Knight: Who is the Peaky Blinders creator behind the Commonwealth Games 2022 opening ceremony?
The 2022 Commonwealth Games is kicking off this evening in Birmingham and at 7pm, the sporting event will begin with a lengthy three-and-a-half-hour opening ceremony.
Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is one of the key voices who devised the ceremony, serving as an executive producer. But who is Knight, and what’s his involvement in Birmingham 2022?
Who is Steven Knight, the TV writer behind the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony?
Writer and director is executive producing Thursday night’s ceremony
Who’s involved with the Opening Ceremony?
The organisers of the Commonwealth Games have drawn on local talent to create this evening’s show with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight one of the key voices who devised the ceremony, serving as an executive producer.
Theatre director Iqbal Khan is the ceremony’s artistic director, novelist Maeve Clarke and rapper Joshua “RTKal” Holness serve as writer and music consultant respectively.
Brummie new wave band Duran Duran are set to perform as part of the ceremony, as well as Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi (alongside Soweto Kinch).
Samantha Oxborough will also perform the National Anthem, supported by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
What time is Commonwealth Games opening ceremony?
The opening ceremony will start at around 7pm BST on Thursday 28th July and is expected to end at around 10:30pm.
The ceremony will be shown live on BBC One from seven and will also be available to stream live on the BBC Sport website and BBC iPlayer.
For those in Birmingham and the surrounding Midlands, there are still a few tickets left if you’d fancy seeing the show live and they are currently on sale at Birmingham2022.com.
The prices vary depending on the five ticket categories for each event with category A the most expensive and category E tickets the least expensive.
Tickets for the opening ceremony are priced at £22 to £290.
Commonwealth Games opening ceremony live
Follow all the latest updates from the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.
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