Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

The Commonwealth Games

Well, I don't know about you, but I enjoyed the Commonwealth Games. Any 
major sporting event at a high level has its inevitable drama, suspense and 
excitement.

Of course, it did tend — except in some sports, notably shooting — to 
narrow itself down to a three-way competition between the most economically 
developed countries of the former British Empire: Britain, Canada and 
Australia.

Nevertheless, it was good every now and again to see the inhabitants of 
former colonies clean up their one-time white masters to win the gold 
medal, the way Malaysia did in women's lawn bowls.

Australia dominated the medals, a predictable result to which a jingoistic 
media attached almost mythic significance. One commentator paid gracious 
tribute to China's role (and especially the role of Chinese coaches) in 
developing our diving team.

But much of Australia's sporting success of the last two or even three 
decades can be traced back to a deliberate attempt to emulate the sports 
development programs of the socialist countries. The establishment of the 
Australian Institute of Sport was a big boost to top level sport in 
Australia.

After the successful counter-revolution in the USSR and Eastern Europe, 
Australia was not backward in recruiting first coaches and then athletes 
from former socialist countries now down on their luck.

In pole-vaulting, diving, weight lifting, gymnastics and a number of other 
sports, Australia's present success has its origins in Eastern Europe.

Channel Seven's commentators went off their brain every time an Australian 
won, but while there "was" some stiff competition, it must be said that 
there was not a lot of it. Entrants like St Kitts and Nevis or Jersey are 
hardly sporting power houses.

Allowing the various bits of Britain to compete as separate countries is no 
doubt a great comfort to Scottish and Welsh nationalists, but why then is 
Cornwall excluded? After all, Cornish people used to speak Gaelic too.

Some of the parts of Britain that were accepted for competition as separate 
countries (like Guernsey) were so insignificant that I kept expecting to 
see a team from Luton.

Speaking of the commentators, the real weak spot of the Commonwealth games 
this year was — once again — the exceedingly parochial approach of the 
television coverage. The images came from the BBC, but the commentary was 
home-grown.

As usual, the selection of just which BBC images to take for Australia was 
predicated on the assumption that Australians don't care about seeing the 
"best", they just want to see Australians. So every heat in which an 
Australian took part was shown in full; gold medal performances where no 
Australian featured were ignored.

Where do Australian sports commentators learn their trade? Wherever it is, 
they should stop teaching them that television is a form of radio. It is 
not necessary, or indeed even desirable, for the commentator to keep up a 
running flow of incessant talk. We can see what's happening.

But Australian commentators work in relays to maintain an uninterrupted 
flow of blather. They endlessly repeat what information they have and have 
no hesitation in telling us what individual competitors are thinking, 
before the race starts and at various intervals throughout.

How many times can we be told during the one race that a competitor broke 
both wrists and his collar bone in a crash in Geelong only a few months 
ago? Once would be sufficient, twice would take care of those who tuned in 
late. By the sixth time you are beginning to wish it had been fatal and the 
commentator had been with him.

The Commonwealth Games began as an idea in the patriotic brain of the 
Reverend Astley Cooper of Yorkshire in 1891. That was the year before Baron 
Pierre de Coubertin publicly propounded his concept of reviving the Olympic 
Games.

The two proposals were radically different in intention, however. De 
Coubertin's aim was to promote world peace: "the day it [his international 
games proposal] is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have 
received a new and strong ally", he said when putting forward the idea.

The Reverend Astley on the other hand was concerned with developing young 
men who could "protect the Empire". The Olympic Games kicked off in 1896; 
Astley's British Empire Games did not actually start until 1930.

In the mid-1950s they became the British Empire And Commonwealth Games. It 
was another 20 years before they dropped Empire from the name entirely.

I reckon having once been conquered by a European power is as good a basis 
for an international sporting competition as any other. But why stop at the 
British? France had a large empire once, so did Spain, Portugal, Austria 
and Germany.

A Spanish Empire Games would possibly be a bit restricted, comprising 
mainly Latin American countries plus a bit of North Africa, while a 
Portuguese Empire Games could have Brazil and Angola, Goa and Mozambique.

A French Empire Games, however, would be quite diverse, ranging from 
Vietnam to French Guyana, New Caledonia to Quebec and all of Francophone 
Africa.

An Austrian Empire Games would probably please the present right-wing 
Austrian Government and its neo-fascist supporters, but would essentially 
be a regional games, restricted to countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

A German Empire Games, on the other hand, would cover a considerable 
geographical area, from West Africa to New Guinea, Tripoli to Norway, the 
Netherlands to Romania and Greece to the Baltic States. The problem with 
this one I suspect would be finding governments and countries — apart from 
Vlaclav Havel's pro-German regime in the Czech Republic — willing to 
participate.

Oh well, we'll just have to wait for the next Olympics after all.