{"id":556895,"date":"2026-08-03T01:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/556895\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T01:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:27:14","slug":"glasgow-2026-commonwealth-games-fail-to-dispel-doubts-over-events-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/556895\/","title":{"rendered":"Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games fail to dispel doubts over event\u2019s future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018A door opener\u2019<\/p>\n

Situated two years either side of the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games<\/a> have often proven to be a launchpad for future stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commonwealth Games is where champions are made,\u201d the president of Commonwealth Sport, Dr Donald Rukare, told AFP.<\/p>\n

After storming to 100m gold in one of the Games\u2019 blue riband events, Cameroon\u2019s Emmanuel Eseme said the Commonwealth Games four years ago had kickstarted his career at the elite level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commonwealth Games has been like a door opener for me,\u201d Eseme said after running 9.83s, despite sodden conditions in Scotland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings started getting going at the last Commonwealth Games with the national record of 10.08. No one in my country ever thought someone from Cameroon was going to run 10.08, I did it in the Commonwealth Games. It was great and, you know, things have just been going well since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia ran away at the top of the medals table, hoovering up 171 medals, including 70 golds, followed by England, Canada and India. The New Zealand team were sixth with 10 golds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ImagesImages from the Commonwealth Games: Zoe Hobbs, Kody Andrews (and fellow judo athletes) and Daniel Morton. Photos \/ Photosport<\/p>\n

But the Commonwealth Games are the chance for the smaller and lesser known of the 74 nations and territories.<\/p>\n

Jersey, Dominica and the British Virgin Islands were among those to come away from Glasgow with gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where it all started for me and this is probably where it will end,\u201d Dominica\u2019s Olympic triple-jump champion Thea LaFond said. \u201cIt feels amazing to be a trailblazer for Dominica.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event also gives some athletes the chance to represent nations or territories that are grouped together at Olympics or international games level.<\/p>\n

Fresh from breaking a 27-year-old world record for the mile, Josh Kerr was billed as the poster boy for the Games on home soil.<\/p>\n

The Scotsman duly delivered with a dominant performance to deliver gold in the first running of the mile at the Commonwealth Games for 60 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have Flower of Scotland playing versus the GB [Great Britain] national anthem, it\u2019s just different,\u201d Kerr said. \u201cNot many times in my career I\u2019ll ever have that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inclusivity of the \u201cFriendly Games\u201d was further enhanced by the largest ever para-sport programme, with six sports fully integrated, compared with the divide between the Olympics and the Paralympics.<\/p>\n

Missing stars and empty stands<\/p>\n

Commonwealth Sport CEO Katie Sadleir is confident the future of the Games is bright with more potential hosts, led by New Zealand<\/a>, expressing interest for 2034 and beyond.<\/p>\n

Yet experience shows even successful bids have failed to materialise.<\/p>\n

This is the second consecutive Commonwealth Games to suffer a change of host, after Durban also pulled out for the 2022 Games.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s ambition to host the Olympics for the first time has been a driving factor behind Ahmedabad\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n

Where the motivation comes to fund the Commonwealth Games beyond its 100th anniversary is less clear.<\/p>\n

The Games\u2019 lack of appeal to athletes was also shown in those who decided not to turn up in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Alongside Kerr, the biggest draw in British athletics, England\u2019s Keely Hodgkinson prioritised the upcoming European Athletic Championships.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s 100m Olympic champion Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia and Canadian swimming sensation Summer McIntosh were among the other big names to skip the Games.<\/p>\n

A lack of star power was reflected in a low-key atmosphere and plenty of empty seats, in stark contrast to 12 years ago when 1.3 million tickets were sold in the same city.<\/p>\n

Glasgow may have saved the Commonwealth project for now, but the long-term health of the Games is far from guaranteed.<\/p>\n

\u2013 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018A door opener\u2019 Situated two years either side of the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games have often proven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[273857,2246,51038,4731,273855,95448,6097,8231,3685,121,12513,3273,6489,33611,685,1432,111,139,69,1523,11590,273856,213,42327,61],"class_list":["post-556895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-10sport","tag-2246","tag-commonwealth","tag-days","tag-dispel","tag-doubts","tag-down","tag-event","tag-events","tag-fail","tag-failed","tag-future","tag-games","tag-glasgow","tag-last","tag-model","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-save","tag-slimmed","tag-sports","tag-stepped","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}