Remember your school athletics and swimming carnivals, where everyone had a go even if you could barely swim 50 metres or run the length of a 400 metre track without getting a stitch?
The aim of the game was to have a go. Participation more important than the results.
Of course there were still the serious competitors, those who wanted to break long-standing school records and make it through to regionals, state or even nationals.
The Commonwealth Games encompass that on a grand scale.
Scrolling through social media comments there’s been a lot of negative feedback about Australia’s dominance in the pool, with the gold rush simply put down to the lack of serious competition from the likes of the USA, China and a plethora of European countries.
Regardless of who’s competing, it doesn’t mean our Aussie athletes are training less because they ‘only’ need to beat that English swimmer or other Commonwealth offsider.
In any sport upsets can happen and it’s never a case of simply turning up. If anything, claiming a gold medal when everyone expects you to win proves that you can handle the pressure.
In all Commonwealth/Empire Games, Australia sits at the top of the medal tally ahead of England, Canada and India. Australia has almost 200 more gold medals than the Poms. How is this not something to be proud of when we have half their population?
Saying the Commonwealth Games are a pointless competition is like claiming the Euro football championships mean nothing because of the World Cup, or the Ryder Cup of golf isn’t a true test because it’s only America versus Europe.
It will never be as big as the Olympics, we all know that, but Commonwealth gold is still an achievement, just like winning a ribbon at your first school carnival.
Pope Paul VII
Guest
Don't care about the detractors I'm loving it. Would have been a good idea to migrate to a poor commonwealth country and bust a gut just to hang out with the beautiful people. Good news is you can still go to the Olympics. Canada are cashed up but they don't seem to give a hoot. All good fun and no one gets hurt. Go PNG, you good things.
magila cutty
Guest
Yeah but they (CG) are marketed as elite competition which they clearly are not. On the up side we beat New Guinea in the lawn bowls.
Hoy
Roar Guru
It is a great accomplishment, no doubt, but to put the accomplishment in context, that is important I think. If the Media is trying to tell everyone in Aus that our swim team has fixed it's issues, they are probably mistaken. If we rest on our Commonwealth medals tally, rather than the times, then we are doomed in two years.
Paul
Guest
But the Euro football championships are usually contested by nations that can be competitive and well-resourced, at least at the upper levels if not at the Group Stage. By contrast, the CGs usually feature Australia, which puts a lot of money into sport per capita, up against the separated home nations of Britain, Canada and a bunch of small and/or developing nations, few of whom would put as much effort into sports such as swimming (where it often helps to have a warmer climate AND sufficient infrastructure to build and maintain swimming pools) that we do. That's not to say that Australia's swimmer are not worthy of praise, they most certainly are, but given the amount of sport we can watch in Australia these days compared to the 1980s and 1990s, the CGs are not going to attract the level of interest they once did.
english twizz
Guest
well said