In loving memory of the Commonwealth (nee Empire) Games, 1930-2022. Survived by the Olympics, various world championships and the Asian Games. There will be a mourning period, but it ought not last for long.
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In time, the Commonwealth Games will be remembered the way a frail, elderly relative often is when they pass away. They will be said to have gone to a better place.
That better place is nowhere, which is literally where we began. After the 2022 edition of the Games in Birmingham, they had nowhere to go.
The talk then was of what might be done to save the event, which hardly amounted to a certificate of glowing good health and the promise of 20 more good years.
As its status diminished and the cost of staging had grown, no one wanted the 2026 Games until Victoria was asked to step in and did, at what was short – and as it turns out too hasty and unconsidered – notice.
Its idea to decentralise and regionalise the Games might have put a flicker of a smile on their old visage for a moment, but it was never going to revive them.
That makes Tuesday’s bombshell announcement temporarily embarrassing for Victoria, sad for some Victorians, and sad for a contracting rump of true believers. But it scarcely amounts to the dashing of a million dreams.
If the Commonwealth Games appeared to be more alive in this country than most, it was only because we’d turned them into a four-yearly orgy of self-congratulation for being better than Scotland and the Isle of Man, and having the medal to prove it.
What this peremptory cancellation does is sound the death knell for the Games, unless some crackpot civic leader somewhere in the anachronism that is the Commonwealth sees a photo opportunity and a swag of votes and is blasé about the cost.
In recent times, South Australia has had its hand up to host every vaguely athletic pursuit known to man and woman. But SA has already passed. So have Queensland, NSW and WA. We’re back to nowhere. Perhaps the AFL will volunteer?
None of this is to say that the Commonwealth (nee Empire) Games did not have a heyday.
Wink to the past: Matilda the Kangaroo at the opening ceremony of the 1982 Brisbane Games.Credit: Vic Sumner
There was a time when it was a big thing. But as the Olympics grew, and sports generally discovered the cachet in World Cups, and sports who could afford it mounted their own world championships, and the calendar filled, and power bases shifted – the Commonwealth Games receded. Arguably, the Asian Games is a bigger deal now.
The biggest sports could and will live without it. Netball, for example, is a cornerstone Commonwealth Games sport, but it also has a healthy life outside.
That leaves only second-tier sports. That’s not to scorn those sports – every sporting pursuit is intrinsically worthwhile – but it is to say that they could not justify a first-tier level of spending and production.
Peter Bol medals at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.Credit: Getty Images
At the time of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, two academics calculated the Commonwealth Games to be 11 per cent as competitive as the Olympics. As the news sank in on Tuesday, all sports declared themselves disappointed, but only some bitterly so.
This tension was apparent as Games authorities saw the post-Birmingham void and began frantically to administer CPR. They declared that only athletics and swimming were compulsory from now on; all other sports could apply.
They sought to widen the Games to broaden their appeal at the same time as reducing their price tag. Under the Victorian model, the Games tried to downsize and upsize at the same time. That sort of exercise would take a toll on even a healthy body.
Something had to give, and it seems it was the Commonwealth Games’ old heart.
There will be a period of mourning now, but it ought not last long. Heard among the wailing on Tuesday was that Victoria’s international reputation was trashed and Melbourne’s status as the sports capital of the world was lost.
Really? We don’t need a mortgage over every sport and event to maintain our AAAA rating. Saudi Arabia is buying up sport at ten times our rate and price. In an arms war, we lose. We’ve built our name on care for sport rather than naked accumulation. This won’t change that.
As for our global reputation, it stands on more than the glister of a few medals at a mid-level sports carnival. If we’re as grown up as we think, we won’t yearn for the favour of equals and peers. New York doesn’t.
Victoria goes all right – with or without the Commonwealth Games. They’ll be missed, but (our) life goes on.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announces the cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games.Credit: Joe Armao
Tuesday’s cancellation is a shock now because no one saw it coming. It will be mildly shocking, too, if someone somewhere does not mount a 2026 Commonwealth Games, because someone always has.
But, be honest about the now-lost Victoria 2026 Games – who will care in a year?
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