commonwealth games
Are there any commonwealthers out there actually watching them? I usually like following them at least a bit, but I'm fairly uninterested this time. It was fairly easy to guess which country was going to be leading the medals table, but twice as many as the next country down and a third of the total? That doesn't exactly make for an exciting competition. I guess it might be more interesting if I were watching any of the individual events, instead of just seeing results.
posted by Lucy @ 1:30 PM
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comments
3 Comments:
I'm going to guess that it's not the Isle of Man that's leading the medal count. I guess the idea of an international sporting event where only some of the world's best atheletes are invited seems a bit lacking.
I've watched quite a number of events -- hard to avoid in this city just now! But I can promise you, you're not missing much.
The point of the Commonwealth games really is different to things like world championships or the olympic games. It's a relic from a very different world. The last traces of the old Empire spirit are still visible when stuff happens like the PNG runner who came last in the men's 500m yesterday was applauded as loudly as the actual winner. At the Olympics when competitors are too slow they are often not allowed to finish as it holds up the next events. In some ways it still is quite a nice thing for representatives of ex-Empire nations to get together in a nonpolitical context. I'm not sure all the athletes really understand this though.
The thing everyone is scratching their heads about here is how extremely well Scotland have done in the swimming...
The friendliness seems to get lost when discussing the results. It's more interesting to follow the little countries, though. They all seem to have one weightlifting medal each... PNG and Isle of Man have 2 medals, though!
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