The Commonwealth itself is struggling for relevance—some people see it as a colonial relic. If its future looks shaky, the prospects for the games may be even worse
, which began in Birmingham on July 28th with a crowd-pleasing opening ceremony, suffer from a Pepsi Cola problem. The athletic standard is among the highest in international sport. At the previous games, in Queensland in 2018, competitors broke nine world records. But, like the fizzy drink, the games are overshadowed by a bigger rival. The summer Olympics are often unwieldy and expensive, but are guaranteed to draw an audience of billions. The Commonwealth Games have the same drawbacks.
Today the games may be more congenial than other big contests, but in sport congeniality only gets you so far. One problem is that in many of the sports it features there are more exciting and prestigious competitions. It’s not only the Olympics. Since 1983 athletics, for example, a cornerstone of both the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games, has had its own world championships, now held every two years. The most recent, postponed for a year because of the pandemic, finished only on July 24th.
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