Ultimate hurrah? Glasgow’s cut-price Commonwealth Games battle for survival | Commonwealth Games 2026

Sometimes when a non-responsive individual is near dying, a wierd medical phenomena happens. From apparently nowhere they expertise a burst of vitality. They recognise folks once more. They begin to converse in sentences. Relatives even dare to hope. But, sadly, that hope is short-lived.

Doctors name it terminal lucidity. And it involves thoughts on the daybreak of the twenty third Commonwealth Games.

Less than three years in the past, the Games had been on life help after the unique hosts, Victoria, successfully paid AUS$380m (£199m) to drag out as a result of it feared losses operating into the billions. Glasgow then stepped in to host a less expensive and stripped again occasion, with solely 10 sports activities in comparison with 19 4 years in the past.

Yet a burning query lingers: can the Games actually be revitalised, or are we merely witnessing a short second of sunshine and lucidity earlier than its inevitable demise?

At the daybreak of 11 days of sporting competitors, Phil Batty, the chief govt of Glasgow 2026 is in a bullish temper.

“This definitely isn’t the last hurrah for the Commonwealth Games,” he tells the Guardian. “What we’ve seen is a wholesale shift of what the Commonwealth Games needs to do to sustain itself, not just to 2030, but to 2034, 2038 and beyond.

“We’ve got some of the best athletes in the Commonwealth, in a city that loves sport, in a nation that loves events. We’re ready to showcase what a new format of the Games looks like, but one which still protects all those amazing hallmarks that makes it super-special.”

However, beneath the optimistic vibes there are important challenges. Tickets are nonetheless broadly obtainable for many occasions – regardless of the Games being pared again. When Glasgow final staged it in 2014, as an example, observe and subject was held in a 46,000-seater Hampden Park. This time spherical it will likely be held on the Scotstoun Stadium, which holds simply over 10,000 folks. Yet tickets are nonetheless obtainable for nearly each session.

Viewers within the UK searching for reside free-to-air protection can even be dissatisfied. Last 12 months TNT Sports purchased the rights for a reported £5m – a tiny sum in an period the place TV sport is booming – with insiders saying the BBC supplied significantly much less.

It signifies that the BBC won’t be displaying the occasion for the primary time since 1954. And whereas TNT is promising greater than 600 hours of reside protection for £4.99 on HBO Max, for a lot of informal followers it will likely be a case of out of sight, out of thoughts.

At least these watching will get to see some stars. Chief amongst them is the brand new mile world report holder Josh Kerr. His showdown with the 2025last 12 months’s world 1500m silver medallist Jake Wightman and the Australian wunderkind Cameron Myers guarantees to be the race of the Games.

Elsewhere the double Olympic breaststroke champion Adam Ramsay-Peaty goes for double gold, whereas the quickest 50m swimmer in historical past, Cameron McEvoy, heads up a robust Australian swimming contingent.

Yet even the listing of absentees is an extended and painful one. It options Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson, the ladies’s 800m Olympic champion. The Canadian swimming sensation Summer McIntosh. The males’s 100m world champion Oblique Seville. The Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo, the world 400m champion Collen Kebinatshipi. And the Olympic ladies’s 100m champion Julien Alfred.

If lots of sport’s largest stars don’t care concerning the Commonwealth Games, then why ought to we?

Despite the hopeful noises a few brighter future, many query whether or not the monetary numbers stack up for future hosts as effectively. Birmingham 2022 ended up being an enormous celebration however its abiding legacy was its stinking monetary hangover – with prices estimated at £778m. Meanwhile the decision of Victoria’s state’s auditor common was notably damning. The Commonwealth video games was, they mentioned, “a waste of taxpayer money” with no “discernible benefit”.

True, Ahmedabad in India has agreed to host the 2030 version as a part of its plans to persuade the International Olympic Committee that it has the potential to stage a future Olympics. But what number of different governments will need to threat taxpayers’ cash on a mid-tier sporting occasion?

Not that Batty sees it that means. “This is going to be a Games that stands shoulder to shoulder with previous Games,” he says. “And it is a really important moment for Commonwealth Sport. It was an event that was in jeopardy which needed to reinvent and make itself fit for purpose for the future. We have created a format of the event that’s flexible, relevant and integrated para-sport. Therefore this is something that’s going to continue for many editions going forwards.”

Plenty of others are deeply sceptical, nonetheless. And in a world the place the Commonwealth itself has looser and extra untangled geopolitical connections, what actually is the relevance of a sporting competitors between 56 disparate nations?

Still, folks have written the occasion off earlier than, just for it to cling on. Earlier this week, organisers introduced that Simple Minds could be the star attraction for the closing ceremony. Over the subsequent 10 days we’ll get a greater concept whether or not the Games are nonetheless alive and kicking.