Let the games end: Athletes have better platforms than Commonwealth Games

One week in October 2024 has underlined in stark terms the truth that the Commonwealth has outlived its utility, if it ever had any. On Tuesday, an Australian senator and indigenous people’s activist heckled King Charles on a visit to Canberra accusing Britain of committing genocide and demanding back the land his colonising ancestors pinched from the continent’s original inhabitants. On Friday, the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government (or Chogm) meeting was dominated by pointless discussions of reparations that Britain should pay Caribbean nations for slavery. Britannia may have ruled the waves on the back of colonies and slaves. Now it’s just a broke, insular power struggling to finance its healthcare system. But nothing underlined the pointlessness of the institution than Thursday’s decision to drop nine sports from the 2026 edition of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

 

The road to the Glaswegian games has been embarrassing enough. The Scottish government spared Britain’s blushes by agreeing to host the Games after the Australian state of Victoria withdrew last year citing rising costs and no other member country stepped up. The upshot of this face-saving decision is that the Games has been pared down to 10 disciplines from 19.

 

That’s going to be a shock for several countries but no more so than the largest economy in the grouping, former Jewel in the Crown, India. Six of the 12 disciplines in which India scored medals have been dropped. Fully 30 of the 61 medals India won in the 2022 edition in Birmingham came from sports that won’t be on the 2026 roster: Wrestling (12 medals, including six golds); table tennis (seven medals, four gold); badminton (six and three); hockey (a silver and a bronze); squash (two bronze); cricket (one silver).

 

Apparently, this truncated version is designed to demonstrate that the Games will be “sustainable and cost-effective demonstrating how future potential hosts can capitalise on existing infrastructure and resources to deliver a world-class, immersive experience for Commonwealth athletes”.

 

Who said this? The president of Commonwealth Games Australia, the same institution that backed out of the 2026 edition.

 

That said, it is unclear why the Games didn’t return to Birmingham where, surely, “existing infrastructure and resources” from the 2022 edition were intact. Also, in at least two disciplines, Glasgow has access to infrastructure. The city boasts a world class National Hockey Centre, built for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Surely this could be cost-effectively deployed for the hockey tournament? Glasgow has an international standard cricket stadium at Titwood, one of four in Scotland that was approved by the International Cricket Council to host ODIs in 2007. India played Scotland on that ground the same year.

 

India, standing fourth on the medals tally at Birmingham, is not the only loser but it is probably the major one. First-placed Australia won three golds in sports that have been dropped from the Glasgow edition — in hockey, cricket and table tennis. The bulk of its medals came from swimming, cycling and athletics, disciplines that remain on the roster. Second-placed England, too, won a gold in hockey and two in table tennis, but athletics and swimming accounted for more than a third of its medals. Third-placed Canada may feel the pinch since 12 of its 92 medals came from wrestling, and one each from squash and badminton.

 

If there are more effective geopolitical groupings for the 56 Chogm members in the third decade of the 21st century, there are better platforms for athletes than the CWG. Fewer world records are broken at the CWGs than the Olympics or even the European games and there are many more events offering athletes more meaningful global competition. Now, with its richer members struggling to foot the bill for the games and members inclined to be less deferential to Charles than they were to his mother, it may be time to lower the flag on a grouping that lost its relevance in the last century.