Commonwealth Games. Who cares?

Am I the only one who fails to feel a connection with this event? What exactly is the point in finding out who is the best from a select group of countries anyway? Gold medalists are not the best in the world. They are the best out of Aust/NZ/Britain/blah blah...SO??!!

World Champs/Olympics should be enough. The only thing that interests me about this event is how badly India might fk up their 1st time holding it

+1

Yawnfest.

World and Olympic Champs aren't even going in many cases, the only people who care about this are Aussies and that's because they can easily tp the medal charts when there's no America/China/Russia around.

I'm interested, being a former swimmer. This and the Olympics are the only time Swimming gets any sort of mainstream news coverage over here. It's still a pretty massive achievement to medal at the Commonwealth Games - there are what - 90odd countries competing?

Will be less embarrassing if we stay here!

:>

Ya I think some british paper summed it up best when they said "If you have heard if them, they arent going"

what_is_the_point Vomit @ the amount of $$ that goes into it

1/4 of all commonwealth citizens is Indian

wondering about the process for choosing the next city and where they're at with that. Guess the event will die a natural death when no city applies to hold it.
God forbid Auckland doesnt take on some misguided commonwealth duty to bankrupt itself for the empire.

Couldn't agree more with OP.

It's antiquated and fkn irrelevant :/

Why is it antiquated? What's wrong with showing pride in the finest collective of nations in the world?
Should we also abolish the European Cup because it's not the whole world?

54 - assuming every member competes.

Didn't that Chopper guy explain the Commonwealth games as being like the parent (i.e. UK) who plays sports with its kids and beats them?

Still sore at losing the Boer War, eh? If you ask me we were to lenient on them.


But seriously, the tide of history is against the Commonwealth games. They were originally to replace the Empire games, when the British had an empire and the concept meant something. But with every passing year the old Empire/Commonwealth becomes a meaningless historical artifact.

Of course, none of that would matter if the games had relevance in the modern sporting calendar - but various world championships, the Olympics, world cups, etc have made them at best an option for the top athletes and at worst a nuisance.

My view is if they are to be kept on, then perhaps they need to be revamped - either into a games that celebrates the sports of the commonwealth - Cricket, rugby sevens, hockey, etc or maybe a youth games.

The commonwea;th games are obviously miles too bloated, especially when you have sports like swimming that manages to create seemingly endless amounts of medal events for every possible motion of moving your freakin arms around

.But even that and your idea of totally changing it from Olympics to sporting events wont change peoples attitude towards it. The collection of nations involved holds no relevance to the general public and the premier athletes are making their feelings plain

The games need to die

I think they should start to extrapolate the absurd amount of swimming styles to athletics. We can have the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m etc backwards running and hopping medals ...then add in all the medleys and stuff. Frankly swimming is just stupid. They should just have distances in the pool. Then whatever style you decide to propel yourself through the water is up to you.

Freestyle is by far the quickest so all the others would be gone. I reckon a better idea would be less distances... 50m 200m and 800m that covers the sprints the middle on the long distance for swimmers. Especially at the Commonwealth game where they might as well just let the Aussies choose which mdeals they want and let everyone else fight over any left overs.

^^ you guys clearly have no understanding of swimming. Should we scrap all the cycling events too to make it simpler for you? Just the 3000m/4000M time trial and sprints? :/

Lauren Boyle qualified third fastest for the 200M Free final tonight Daniel Bell and Gareth Kean both in the top 8 going into tonight's semifinal for the 50M backstroke.

Def should reduce the amount of events in cycling. I keep forgetting to include in my bleats how much MONEY goes into these games. Just the $ that gets allocated from our sports budgets is criminal. Let alone the wider picture of all the other countries money. lets get a carbon fooootprint on this thing while we're at it!

Sky has hooked us up with 6-7 new channells specifically for the games I see

They have scrapped some cycling events recently haven't they?

Also, just watching some weightlifting. Since they have special classes for people that can't lift heavy weights cos they are too small, I think there should also be the 100m sprint in athletics for people that can't run fast because they have short legs.

It's not about simplifying it because people don't understand it. It's about cutting the unnecessary bloat that has just gotten worse and worse over the years. Plenty of sports all have their own world champs every year, so no need to completely replicate them in commonwealth games years.

Most of the channels are showing replays of replays. Not much live stuff it seems happening so far.

Some good swims tonight. Lauren turned 3rd at the 150 mark but faded in the final 30m to finish 7th. Both Daniel Bell and Gareth Kean have qualified for the final of the 50m Backstroke and Natalie Wiergsma (sp) was 0.03s off 3rd in the 200IM final. She got a national record in the process.

Heats again at 4pm tomorrow.

4 people watching the Blacksticks game at turf

9 people watching the silver ferns game at stadium


One swimming heat had one swimmer with no swimming cap and one without goggles


LOL

Tickets are like $3 for events. I am assuming that's reasonable in terms of local prices?

I guess the problem is that the public are being put off by the massive security levels ...that and there's Aus vs India cricket on at the moment so most people there probably don't care about the commonwealth games at the moment.

What a shambles this event has been so far.

Listening to Telfer this morning apprently the crowds are down at the games AND the cricket

Seriously I think India 2010 with be the death knell for the CWG. Enjoy it while you can HH

Plenty of swimmers swim without such things.

Have they allocated the next CGWs to anyone yet?

Track cycling on now. This is much better. Something that NZ has a chance of doing pretty well in.

NZers into the gold and bronze medal races in the mens 4000m individual pursuit ...so that's at least a silver guaranteed.

Glasgow

First two medals overnight in the cycling! Swimming was pretty good too. Daniel Bell missed out on Bronze in the 50m Back by <0.06s. Good considering the 100 is his main event. And Glenn Snyders into the final of the 100M breast after holding the Commonwealth Games record for all of 2minutes after the first semi. Hayley Palmer and Tash Hind into the final of the 100M Free and Melissa Ingram in the 100M Back final. I used to be faster than Glenn in 3rd form :p My claim to fame lol

From the third world to the murder capital of Western Europe...

It's pretty embarrasing the amount of empty seats. Sucks for the athletes as there's next to no atmosphere. And looks terrible going out to a worldwide audience.

And half of the events are an absolute fucking joke. The gymnasts are mostly pathetic, with commentary talking about how they deserve to do well, tried their hardest and did well to execute a trained routine, no matter the difficulty. Table Tennis & Badminton without Chinese teams... neat. I suppose Swimming and cycling are a bit better, but it's still not exactly riveting viewing is it.

Rubbish imo.



gc.

Maybe the crowds will be better now that the cricket game is over?

But yeah, from what I've seen everything has screamed amateur hour to me...

Surely this event's time has come and gone?

They'll keep stretching it out no doubt. Must be a bit of a money vacuum for the host cities though!



gc.

It not just the host cities though, its our sports funding! Pissed I cant find a link or confirmation but Im sure I read that like 200mill goes into the games. That sort of money goes forever in other sports. Instead we send to send 100's of athletes and hangers on to stay overseas for a month at a largely irrelevant event . It sucks

Gymnastics yesterday was a joke- was like 'beginner day' at the local gym club

Not really... Most of the gold winners from Great Britain's Olympic cycling team haven't fronted, and swimming without the US is a bunch of free golds for the Aussies.

Track will be such a joke, a white man might win the 100m.

Surely not.

Jamaica is in the Commonwealth! England... Canada... Other West Indian nations. So many fast niggers out there!

:>

gc.

They definitely need an overhaul of the events imo.

I don't think any of the Jamaican sprinters are coming, or basically anyone in the top 10, so yeah unlikely a white man will win but more likely than at any other CWG in recent history.

Forgot how good Commonwealth boxing is. Have flicked over for a couple of things so far and been bored but this is excellent. So much more gentlemanly than your average bout and such better scoring.

A good crash and some disqualifications in the cycling. That provided some entertainment. An Aussie rider got relegated from the keirin final, then rode over the finish line and around the track giving the fingers to the officials in the next race.

....oh, and another silver and bronze for the kiwis in cycling.

A torrent of seconds, thirds and fourths.

GO NEW ZEALAND!



gc.

Usain bolt is not coming due to a back injury, but Batman is there!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/commonwealth-games/athletics/4206234/Batman-races-in-Commonwealth-Games

So one of the main draws for the 100m is a guy that hasn't run under 10 seconds yet? Says it all really.

It's only heats. They usually slack off once they're in front and know they're sweet for the next round.

I'm pretty sure they said his PB was more than half a second slower than Bolt's which would be 10.08 at least.

Yeah pretty sure he hasn't been close to breaking into the 9s yet. But he is only 19 or 20 so will def do it at some point.

Fan-fucking-tastic night in the pool so far. Palmer breaks her NZ record again for the bronze in 25.01 then Snyders follows that up with an equal silver in the 50M breastroke and an NZ record in the process too. I used to beat that guy in 3rd form. A long time ago now! Then Daniel Bell storms home in the final 20M of the 100M back to take the silver off Delaney in a 54.4.

More medals to come?

Fuck these games are hilariously amateur.

Maybe my timing is just bad, but I just turned on telly to watch some sevens and the dude just kicked a restart BACKWARDS and into touch

The only decent team missing from the sevens is Fiji as far as I can tell? All the other good teams are there.

Agreed that the games are pretty amateur in places, but the sevens isn't really one of them imo. Was an epic final last night! And a titanic (albeit low scoring) game between England and Samoa early in the day which pretty much assured us of a place in the final.



gc.

I've done a bit of thinking about the com games and have concluded that they are a critical part of of the sporting landscape. Sure there are negatives that have been done to death in this this thread but lets look at some of the positives that make the CG terrific:

- Sure some of the events are a bit of a joke/ amateur but others have world class fields. For example, the road cycling races were awesome and filled with some of the world's best pros; actually the men's road race was probably the best cycling race ive seen. It owned any stage of the TDF i've watched, with the tactics involved (esp from the kiwis) and showing how brutal the sport can be. The field vs Mark Cavendish was siiiick not to mention Roulston sending Bauer off (who was fucked) for a solo breakaway 3-4 laps out that almost came off and then taking it to the 3rd best sprinter at the worlds to come up a bike length short on a crook gut was magic.

- Gives a chance for us to see more awesome bloopers/controversy. I'm looking at you African weightlifter who got pinned under the bar, leg bent backwards, foot facing the other way.

- Provides awesome sporting success moments; the womens 4 x 400m relay last night was awesome with the lIndian girls taking it out, beating the likes of JAMAICA, NIGERIA, AUSTRALIA and ENGLAND. Fuck yes.

- They are a superb 'practice' for the Olympics, giving athletes much needed experience in the 'games environment'. Just ask any athlete. The CG provides them with that much needed 'lead up' to the Olympics.

- We get 2 weeks of wall to wall sport in silly season. Lets face it, outside of the ITM Cup there's 2/10ths of fuck all to watch sporting wise at the moment. CG = welcome fix.

And what about that little fox Nikki Hamlin. And the kiwi high jumper chick. Reooow.

I must say I have watched a lot of the games in the evening and mornings. There hasn't been a lot else on our screens, whether it's to laugh at the losers or admire the genuine competitors. The breadth and variation of competition that this style of games brings is always an attraction, that's for sure.



gc.

Hamblin is NOT a fox!!!! LOL

She has a very odd running style too but good on her for her accomplishments, that drag race to blitz into second was awesome

*googles*

jeepers psssst. Im all for sporty chicks getting xtra points but thats taking it a bit far

i guess the other thing is that we shouldn't judge the entire concept of the CWG on this current hosting farce, it'd be like judging the Olympic on Moscow in 1980.

Dont tell me you wouldn't hit it. Scared she's show you up in the sack imo.

Barks like a dog, Phil.

ps wtf was that even from?? Something 80s I daresay ^_^

nikki hamblin is much hotter in real life! for some reason she doesn't look that great on tv...i've seen her at the pools in cambridge.


does cambridge have some of the best athletes in nz or what? all of our rowers. sarah ulmer. nikki hamblin...there's a few others whose names i can't recall off the top of my head as well.

sorry fella but you've posted your idea of hot women on here before and you have < zero credibility on the matter.

Keno ad in the 90's.

+ 1 for the Nikki Hamlin is NOT a fox camp.

Fucken WORD to that!



gc.

Joelle King > Nikki Hamblin.



gc.

watched a bit more recently....cant say Im getting used to every 2nd shot in major sporting events being of some dude clutching a machine gun. Is that really necessary? Oh yeah...it is. FTW

btw if we are talking squash, Joelle is VERY nice but still.... Shelley Kitchen >> Joelle King

<3 Shellley Kitchen. I even stalk her fan page. Mega Wahine imo

I can't get used to every second shot being a fucking scummy cunt Australian winning a gold medal, usually at our expense!



gc.

yeah thats no fun either, I just quickly switch channells. Ive read that even the Aussies back home are sick of it and are tuning out.

The Hockey was pretty good last night, visually and game wise

Charlotte Harrison>Joelle King

wtf is wrong wif you people?

Shelley managing to look gorgeous sweaty and exhausteed

Look at those teef!

If you guys dont agree your all dicks and Im not posting anymore! for 2 hours! in protest at your dickeryness!

....aaaaand the Commonwealth Games is SO awesome the thread quickly turns into an arguement about hot sporty wimmin

Not necessarily saying these birds are smokln hot GB (although Masty is) - just stating the superiority of their looks relevant to the aforementioned party.



gc.

Sharpen up Gummi.... using a profile picture from NZ Hockey is not your best work. Profile pic's off team websites are never flattering.

oh yeah joelle king is from cambridge too....her dad was one of the people who found me knocked out unconscious when i was bottled in the pub there on xmas eve mid 2000s.

her brother is regan king...some of you might remember him as a fairly decent rugby player for waikato.

kerri-ane payne from england is decent, 3rd in 400 im

She is hot, actually theres quite a few hotties in the womens hockey team.

Epic way to finish tbf... First time I've ever really cared about Netball.

Jesus Christ the netballers made it hard for themselves. How many chances did they squander before they pulled it off?

How good is it to see Aussies looking devastated.