Paul Lewis: Commonwealth value still has merit

It's become terribly fashionable to pan the Commonwealth Games. Commentators from all over the shop are yawning and delivering glib little bon mots about how irrelevant the Games are.

One gnarled old radio commentator even said he couldn't get excited about anything to do with the Commonwealth. As if that's got anything to do with it.

The put-downs are not just from the media. In the UK, there's a bloke by the name of Dave Collins who is UK Athletics performance director. He's not going to the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, he says, because his time would be better used in Britain, "putting in place the systematic changes to the sport that are necessary in our long-term plan for the Beijing Olympics in 2008".

The subtext to this is that the Brits had an appalling time of it in the recent world championships in Helsinki and there has been all sorts of breast-beating and finger-pointing in British athletics. Collins didn't actually say so but it is clear he is placing more store on the European championships being held in August.

It says something when the head man of UK athletics feels he is better employed at home rather than watching his athletes at the Commonwealth Games - a Games attended by the remnants of what used to be the Empire, dear boy, old chap...

None of this is new, of course. The Games comes a long third to the Olympics and world champs. Some athletes give the impression they can't be bothered with them either - like Kenya's 5000m world champion Benjamin Limo who said recently the world cross-country championships were a higher priority for him. Commonwealth long jump champion Nathan Morgan and triple-jumper Nathan Douglas, both English and both highly ranked, have chosen to go to the world indoor championships in Moscow instead of Melbourne.

But it is the apathy and rather fashionable decrying of the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand which really surprises.

A long third it might come - and maybe even fourth or fifth when you take things like European champs and the world cross-country into account - but the Games still afford New Zealand athletes in many sports a chance to be exposed in a major competition and to see if they have got the juice to go to a higher level.

The short-sighted thing about Collins' decision to avoid Melbourne is that he will not get the chance to run his eye over youngsters who might be candidates for the 2012 Olympics in London. Obviously, UK athletics is not thinking past 2006 and 2008 yet (Beijing). But they should be.

It's the same for New Zealand. All right, the Games may not be a world-ranked event. But it will enhance the careers of some. Other than performing well in a world championships or an Olympics, there are few other areas where New Zealand sportspeople can make a bid for higher honours.

However, it does appear that it might only be tired and/or cynical commentators who are consigning the Games to the septic tank of journalism. There are few New Zealand athletes who will be looking sniffily down their noses at the Games. Apart from anything else, the Games also afford another element in short supply in these relentlessly professional days - fun. It is a throwback to the days of amateurism where the taking part actually meant something.

Try telling the athletes who bring home gold, silver or bronze medals that their efforts are tarnished because the Games occupy a less exalted place than yesteryear and see what you get.

Of course, the same commentators who decry the status of the Games are the same ones who will fawn over the winners, human nature being what it is.

There are two other points to be made about Melbourne - 1) the Australians will do a superb job and 2) at some stage, we will be exposed to their TV coverage. Shudder.

After the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the 2003 Rugby World Cup - the latter, I think, the best of its kind in terms of the quality of organisation and the atmosphere generated - the Australians may just lead the world when it comes to delivering a world-class sporting event. Games cynics should ponder how New Zealand might do if charged with the same task. I will be amazed if the Melbourne games are anything but well-run, attractive and full of drama and humour.

Having said that, there is another certainty. The Australians, themselves not beyond sniffing at the Commonwealth Games a little, will ramp up their rampant nationalism when the medals start rolling in. I was unfortunate enough to be in Australia during the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games.

With every passing day, the medals flowed in so that even the Australians got tired of saying how wonderful it all was, as their TV focused on all the Aussies to the exclusion of everyone else.

Instead, one news bulletin suggested that the Australians should now be allowed to send state teams to Commonwealth Games instead of national teams. When the inevitable backlash came, they said it had all been in fun.

Yes, that's right, about as fun as the Black Plague.

And it's coming again..

- HERALD ON SUNDAY