Paul Lewis: Ditch sports to save Games

It's been puzzling how quickly and quietly we waved goodbye to hopes of hosting the 2018 Commonwealth Games. It might have been our last chance.

Perhaps the coming Rugby World Cup has masked any dissatisfaction over the decision to pull out of the race to host the 2018 games. Or maybe it was the cold certainty that, as the Government said, we can't afford it.

John Key's assertion that the games would result in a nett loss of $600 million to the New Zealand taxpayer passed almost without comment or dissent. Not that there can be too much argument.

The Delhi Commonwealth Games to be held this year are costing a massive US$1.6 billion ($2.2 billion). That makes them the most expensive in history, beating the US$1.1 billion ($1.55 billion) spent in Melbourne in 2006.

In Glasgow, the host of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, there has been shock and horror that the costs rose by £81 million to a total of £454 million ($964 million) late last year.

It will be a miracle if they don't rise again - maybe even several times - before 2014.

The latest to pull out of the 2018 race was the Caribbean state of Trinidad and Tobago. They did so for the same reasons as New Zealand - the economic equation was too daunting. That means the games will not have been held in the West Indies since Jamaica in 1966.

New Zealand hosted the games in 1950, 1974 and 1990. All were successes.

Christchurch in 1974 was perhaps the most memorable and colourful, although my mother helped cover the 1950 Empire Games (as they were then) and I can still remember, as a boy, listening to her tales of the athletes and her adventures as a reporter.

All those games had a signal effect on New Zealand. They fed the notion of sport being an expression of the national psyche - a little country which punched above its weight; citizens enjoying the sight of home-grown athletes beating the world's best; the family of sport alongside the 'family' of the Commonwealth; a sense of achievement and a place in the world.

So it could be argued there are reasons other than money for staging such games.

However, the sheer incontrovertible fact is that the Commonwealth Games have become too big; too unwieldy; too expensive.

India, for example, gloried in winning the 2010 games. It was to be an unveiling of a burgeoning country which, in its own way, carries even more economic potential than the enormous mass of China.

The Indian gift for commerce, inventiveness and technology gives the country unbounded hope for the future.

Yet Delhi has been beset by problems. Security is one, readiness another. Deadline after deadline has slipped by with officials alarmed at the delays in games infrastructure.

Delhi is not the first Olympic or Commonwealth Games host to be affected by such problems. It won't be the last.

But with the threat of terrorism and the highly publicised delays, you have to say that all India has achieved thus far is to underline its 'third world' status; to have reinforced the prejudice that intentions are honourable but execution may be lacking; a country huge in promise but small on delivery. US$1.6 billion for that?

It does seem that the days of small or emerging nations holding the games, in their current format, may be numbered indeed; gone, even.

Unless there is a change - a big one.

There is no law which says the games have to be bigger and better each time and move to a new venue where new facilities are built.

Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt was one of the few to protest at the Government decision and said the 2018 games could be held across New Zealand rather than in just one city.

Wouldn't work. The concept of the games is that the 'family' get a chance to enjoy each other and that fans do not have to travel to Invercargill to watch the cycling, for example, and then Whangerei for the squash. 'Atmosphere' is also crucial.

No, there are two options for enabling the games to survive - and we will not here get into the tiresome debate of whether the Commonwealth Games mean anything any more and whether the 'Empire' has outlived its usefulness.

With all due respect to the republicans, it's not the point. The Commonwealth Games long ago lost the silver chain which tied them to Mother England.

They are about sport and a more relevant criticism is that they have lost their standing - and come a long way behind the Olympics, world championships and even European Championships in various sports.

First idea - hold the games in a central location every time.

London is gearing up for the 2012 Olympics and presumably will have facilities which could be used for such a purpose.

New funding models would have to be found but that seems preferable to hawking a tired old Duchess around suitors who can't afford her.

Glasgow is another option. Or Melbourne - although maybe even that sports-mad city would struggle as it adapted the Melbourne Cricket Ground at vast cost for the main stadium and then adapted it back again.

Second idea - reduce the number of sports. The games have swollen to 20 or so sports, many of which do not reach world class standard.

Admittedly, being of world class is not totally what the games are about and many countries (including New Zealand) use them to introduce sportspeople to international competition.

But, again, some form of rationalisation and focus is surely better than a slow descent into meaninglessness or, possibly, extinction.

Usain Bolt, for example, may not go to Delhi with the Jamaican team - but he likely would if they had genuine cachet.

The sports involved could be chopped back to those closer to the old Olympian ideals or those which involve genuinely world class standards and attract TV coverage.

Maybe track and field, swimming, boxing, gymnastics, cycling and weightlifting could be the core sports with very few others - if any - added.

That will bring howls of protest from the likes of archery, badminton, bowls, hockey, netball, rugby sevens, shooting, squash, table tennis, tennis and wrestling.

Some countries, like the Asian members of the Commonwealth, may protest that some sports in which they are traditionally strong have been ditched and so on.

But there seems to be no other way out for the games if we want them to be held in different lands every time.

Or at all.