Had the organisers of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games (Cost: $6.77 billion, Age: 9 days, Address: erm, Delhi) known that they would have to go through criticism over sanitation, worries over security, and, in the case of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, widespread international mirth over their names, they’d probably have packed the whole idea in and put the kettle on.
These games are the latest in a long and hallowed tradition, that of everyone suddenly having the thought, “Hang on. This might go horribly, horribly wrong,” and bricking themselves in consequence. Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and now Delhi 2010, all riddled with problems about pollution, corruption, child labour, smog and one collapsing bed. All of which, inevitably leads to the question being asked, “Is it worth it?”
RELEVANT
Critics can argue that the games have little relevancy when there already exists a system of Olympic games every four years, and meet upon competition upon match for every sport under the sun.
The Commonwealth, well, it’s not all that up there as an entity, is it? Not with the E.U., land/country/thing of a thousand tongues, a thousand dreams and butter mountains. Or with the US, where the hamburger roams free.
Separated by a vast concatenation of geographical, linguistic, sociological and hagiographical circumstances (because no-one really expects to see Ramakrishna popping up in a stained glass window, do they?), there needs to exist some other reason for having these competitions.
“But wait,” you say, “you’ve not mentioned the sport yet!”
“Aha,” I say, “I thought we might get onto that.” Two facts, moderately well known, about such countries as the US, Russia, China, Germany and so on is that they are rather large, and rather powerful. This leads to two further things: firstly, these countries have a lot of very good sportspeople, and, secondly, that we never owned their country.
NO-SHOWS
The upshot of all this dazzling logical analysis is that the Commonwealth Games are inherently devalued by the non-appearance of many of the world’s greatest athletes. This in turn is furthered by the fact that Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Philips Idowu, and other such big names have pulled out of attending these particular Games, whether it be from end-of-season exhaustion, like Jessica Ennis, or concerns over security and hygiene standards, like Idowu.
The cries of, “Wot, no Americans?” already being posited at TV screens during some of the athletics only strengthen further the cries of, “We should just scrap the lot,” surely?
Well no, actually, it doesn’t. Bigger and shinier the Olympics might be, with their Usain Bolts, their Kathy Freemans and their Michael Johnsons, their corporate sponsorships and their world records innumerable.
They can have them though; we of Britain, and most probably the whole Commonwealth, have always been used to coming in second to Americans and Russians and Chinese. Let them keep their speedy swimsuits and their ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ (which always sounded worryingly eugenics-ish, anyway).
UNIQUE
We’ll be watching an opening ceremony with an alien mothership landing in the middle of a traditional dance, reading the bafflingly suggestive motto of “Come out and play”, watching a mascot that looks like Tony the Tiger on ritalin, and most of all watching boxers, swimmers, runners, jumpers from tiny little countries like Nauru and Malta do their thing Eric-the-Eel style, because this is after all their big moment, and these games belong to them, and not the megastars.
They compete for longer than Bolt does anyway.