Commonwealth Games 2026

[Roamingrover86 968]

45 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

It frees up the calendar and maybe injects a little more funding for those events. They might be more willing to take the European Games seriously now.

Which isn’t a bad thing. Olympic games and continental games should be sufficient as multi sports events. Additionally, if you think if more quota places are made available in different sports from these continental games all NoCs are bound to take these games more seriously. This should be the way forward. 
Scrap the commonwealth games and focus more on continental games. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,709]

Given this would be the first games under Charles III (both as UK Sovereign and Head of the Commonwealth) I think they will be doing everything humanly possible to ensure that the games are not cancelled.

 

Given the time constraints, that basically means looking for hosts who won't need major infrastructure developments so the most obvious solution is to scale back on some of the events and to look at previous hosts. 

 

Wouldn't surprise me if it was to be back in  to be honest.

[Orangehair43 315]

1 hour ago, Rafa Maciel said:

Given this would be the first games under Charles III (both as UK Sovereign and Head of the Commonwealth) I think they will be doing everything humanly possible to ensure that the games are not cancelled.

 

Given the time constraints, that basically means looking for hosts who won't need major infrastructure developments so the most obvious solution is to scale back on some of the events and to look at previous hosts. 

 

Wouldn't surprise me if it was to be back in  to be honest.

Doesn’t  sound like the  government are interested as they have urged Australia to find a solution. 

[Rafa Maciel 1,709]

6 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

Doesn’t  sound like the  government are interested as they have urged Australia to find a solution. 

I wouldn't expect anything different given it has only been a day since the announcement but whatever the government is saying now doesn't preclude the possibility that they will support the games being staged in the UK again if an alternative cannot be accommodated elsewhere.

 

There is still a halo effect from the relative success of Birmingham - it was brought in on pretty much on budget, was well attended and the home nations performed strongly, and it has been estimated to have generated GBP 800m to the economy of the Midlands - so it is no surprise that there is still strong support for hosting the games in UK. We've already had politicians tweeting support including West Midlands mayor Andy Street encouraging UK regions to consider stepping in. 

 

The only thing that would potentially count against a UK region stepping in at the moment is the suboptimal optics of bidding for big sporting events during a cost-of-living crisis but if no other solution is seen to be viable, it is eminently possible that the games will be back in the UK in 2026. 

[phelps 8,704]

14 hours ago, NearPup said:

Netball has no real interest in joining the Olympics, as evidenced by their complete lack of effort in developing the men’s game.

but also if they develop the men's game, it's still a poor man's basketball (that already has that 3*3 shit other than the actual game...and both well established in both genders).

 

not to mention that's played at high level only in a few Commonwealth Countries and it's basically unknown in 98% of the world.

 

there's 0 chance Netball will ever become an Olympic sport.

 

having said that, I'm really sorry for the bad situation of the CWGs, I've always liked them and I've always tried to follow at least some of the sports involved.

[Rafa Maciel 1,709]

The more you read about this, the more evident it becomes that the Victorian model was doomed to failure. I hadn't realised that little if any of the events were going to take place in Melbourne using the existing facilities. Instead they had chosen 5 provincial hubs which required substantial investment in new facilities and infrastructure. Some sources are suggesting that despite warnings over the additional costs associated with this model, the provincial hub approach was used as a way to secure votes during the 2022 election. 

 

The Commonwealth Games Federation have been aware that the biggest challenge to finding a host has been the cost and to counter this they took the decision to strip the core sports back to bare minimum - athletics and swimming - but again the Victorian government chose to ignore this. Not only did they maintain the full list of sports staged in Birmingham (with exception of judo, rhythmic gymnastics and wrestling), they added golf, rowing, coastal rowing, shooting, BMX and mountain biking. 

 

The initial estimate for hosting the games was in the region of GBP 1.3bln - that's getting on for double the costs associated with Birmingham. Surely alarm bells should have been ringing as soon as they generated that estimate. For the latest cost estimates to be 3 times that original budget is mind blowing - no competent program manager would allow the budget to spiral so far out of control and would suggest significant mismanagement/interference in the process.

 

[Orangehair43 315]

Arguably Swimming in Particular is one of the more expensive sports to host because they are few facilities that are both big enough and have enough seats to not make it seem tiny. Like London still has the Olympic pool but the seating facilities are pretty small and couldn’t really be used for an able bodied world champs or a commonwealth games. (I attended a session of the World Para there in 2019.)

[dullard 744]

4 hours ago, Orangehair43 said:

Arguably Swimming in Particular is one of the more expensive sports to host because they are few facilities that are both big enough and have enough seats to not make it seem tiny. Like London still has the Olympic pool but the seating facilities are pretty small and couldn’t really be used for an able bodied world champs or a commonwealth games. (I attended a session of the World Para there in 2019.)

Victoria had a perfectly fine swimming venue that already hosted swimming in 2006 and also the world short course swimming champs in December but the government refused to use any venues in Melbourne. 

[dullard 744]

Ahmedabad considering a bid for 2026

 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/others/ahmedabad-may-bid-for-2026-commonwealth-games/articleshow/101906322.cms

[wamel042 23]

17 hours ago, dullard said:

Victoria had a perfectly fine swimming venue that already hosted swimming in 2006 and also the world short course swimming champs in December but the government refused to use any venues in Melbourne. 

I really do not understand why many proposals are based on new venues or venues which need major upgrade. Only to meet the demands of the international federations?

 

When was the last time we did see full stands at a major competition? London 2012? After that many events seemed to be held in venues too big for the interested public. It was a shame looking at the stream of the European Games in 2023. Athletics held in a 50.000-venue with hardly any spectators.

 

Lot of venues build for big events seem te be unused or do not need the capacity after the Games: Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, Rio 2016, World Cup soccer in South Africa and Qatar……

 

In order to ‘survive’ a critical review of the way forward seems te be helpfull…..