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Workers, top, place a banner as paramilitary soldiers, bottom, patrol at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium ahead of the Commonwealth Games, in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Sept.15, 2010. The stadium will be the venue for the field hockey matches of the games scheduled to be held from Oct. 3-14.(AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)
Below the Olympics, in the list of multi sports Games, there are quite a few that don’t get much publicity in Australia.
There is the Asian Games, due to be held in China next month. The last Asian Games in Qatar 2006 featured 9520 athletes from 45 countries in 39 sports.
Other examples are the African Games, the Pan American Games, as well as non-geographical games such as the Gay Games and the Maccabiah Games. The countries that compete in these Games have a common link; geographical or even religious.
Which brings me to the Commonwealth Games, which were started as the British Empire Games back in 1930 when the world was a vastly different place and many of the current members of the 2010 Games did not exist or were known by completely different names, such as South Arabia and Rhodesia.
» CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL 2018 COMMONWEALTH GAMES SCHEDULE
Obviously the British Empire is no more even though the opening ceremony usually contains some military involvement to honour the old military traditions.
My point is that the link that these nations (since when were places like Norfolk island, Guernsey and the Isle of Man nations anyway?) share is a very weak one. That is, we all belong to nations that used to be part of the British Empire.
In countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which have a large but declining percentage of the population from British roots, this link may still have some strength.
However in countries like Nigeria, India and Jamaica this link is a very fragile and probably is not one that the people of these countries respect. Britain captured many of the countries of Africa, Asia and America and were only removed over the last 50-70 years quite often by force, such as in Kenya.
What do countries such as Botswana, India and Namibia have to celebrate about being former British colonies?
Incidentally many members of the Commonwealth are now republics, such as Malta, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Canada and South Africa.
It seems that a lot of athletes from many of the countries have no real interest in the Commonwealth Games as many of them have pulled out, especially world-class runners from Jamaica (Powell, Bolt and Fraser), Kenya (Rudisha) and South Africa.
Even Britain has had high profile no-shows, from champions such as Jessica Ennis (heptathlon), Geraint Thomas (cycling )and Beth Tweddle (gymnastics)
The time of the Empire (Commonwealth) is over and nations should just compete in their regional games, whether that be European, Asian, African, Oceanic or Pan America.
The bonds here are much tighter for most nations, rather than having the common link of being a former victim to the old British Empires’ quest to take over the world.