Opinion
The Commonwealth Games ... don’t even think about it, Sydney
Peter FitzSimons
Columnist and authorSo many questions, so many points, so little time. Whither the Commonwealth Games of Melbourne 2026?
Right on the vine, before our very eyes. And all in a remarkably short time since the Andrews government put its hand up, just last year, to say it would host them.
How did it come to this?
Well, will you indulge me a moment if I cite Victor Hugo’s theorem, and follow up with “Fitz’s Corollary”?
Hugo said: “Nothing else in the world ... not all the armies ... is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
My corollary is that, “And nothing is so truly dead as an idea whose time has gone.”
Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast hosted the Commonwealth Games track and field events in 2018.Credit: Getty
The whole concept of the Commonwealth Games is the almuni of the British Empire Sports Club.
Its raison d’etre is to gather in the one place at the one time athletes from former British colonies, so that bigger and more powerful nations like Australia can give those upstarts of the Cook Islands and Fiji what they have coming to them – a sound thrashing. And who cares?
Groucho Marx once said he would never want to belong to a club that would have him as a member, and the truth of it is that despite all the public hoopla, every Commonwealth Games when Australia comes away with many dozens of gold medals, isn’t the reality that they are all but instantly forgotten the moment we tune out halfway through the closing ceremony?
The whole thing was very tired. After all, when it comes to sporting glory, would you rather have one Olympic gold medal or 20 Commonwealth Games gold medals?
You know the answer. So make it 50 Commonwealth Games gold medals, to one Olympic gold. Don’t we all still know the answer?
Ah, but you disagree, and say the Commonwealth Games still has a place in the modern world.
Great. Please name where the 2022 and 2018 Commonwealth Games were held? The answer is Birmingham and the Gold Coast, respectively.
So recent, yet you didn’t instantly recall, and I had to look them up.
The closing ceremony of the Birmingham Commonwealth Games last year.Credit: Getty
But hang on, you know the next Olympics are in Paris, and going backwards you could name every Olympic Games right back to yonks ago, yes? (Personally, I can get back to Amsterdam in 1928 before I get foggy, but that is only because I have interviewed so many Australian Olympians from all the Games since, and their stories stick with me.)
And the truth of it is even the Olympics are in bad trouble these days, as is the whole concept of huge amounts of public monies going to two-week long sports carnivals. When “Syd-er-nee” was awarded the Olympics, it was a very big deal, as one of six candidates for the honour. Do you think there was a reason Brisbane was the last one standing for the 2032 Olympic Games? All the other host cities had run screaming from the room, once they had crunched the numbers.
But I get it, you still disagree. You still think they are a great concept, with a place in the modern world.
If that were the case, tell me why after Victoria pulled out, the number of provincial or national leaders stepping up to float the idea that “Maybe WE can do it,” is – hang on, just let me count up – NONE.
Every premier in Australia has quickly said, “Nuh, not us little black ducks”, and while various mayors in Oz and around the world have floated the possibility of hosting it, they have received little support. Columnists who say their own home city should have a go – like my cherished colleague Michael Koziol – have been either shouted down or received lukewarm support at best. Have a look at the comments below Michael’s piece, “Why Sydney should (reluctantly) step up and host the Commonwealth Games,” and you will get the drift.
The reasons are twofold.
For starters, in straitened times, the mob is rightly wary of enormous amounts of public monies going to sporting infrastructure, when so many other things are more needy – you know, like hospitals, schools and roads. (I actually think I might have mentioned this once or twice?)
And secondly, as discussed, the very concept of the Commonwealth Games, formerly known as the British Empire Games, is on the nose.
It just doesn’t cut it any more.
They may or may not be able to resuscitate some kind of Commonwealth Games for 2026. But it will not change the dynamic that is doing it down: a glorified school sports carnival held all but exclusively for the remnants of the British Empire, is an idea whose time has gone.
Victoria has made the right decision to pull out.
But it clearly made the wrong decision in the first place, to put its hand up so recently on the big idea of putting it in the regions. It does not make sense that the estimated costs should have blown out. All budgets have built-in factors for inflation, so how did what seemed like a great idea at the time, go so badly wrong that it pulled out of the whole thing only a year and a bit later?
Those issues will be thrashed about in months to come. But it doesn’t change the reality: the Commonwealth Games were great while they lasted, and indeed delivered up some great sporting moments and wonderful memories.
But they’re done.
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