Winston Aldworth: Patronising anachronism has lost all relevance

Sport and the societies in which it is played are a reflection of each other.

But when the nations that are wondering whether to show up in Delhi look in the mirror, surely they don't see anything as dysfunctional and meaningless as the Commonwealth Games.

Last night's decision by New Zealand to go to the Commonwealth Games is a lost opportunity. The Delhi Games are on the verge of collapse, and we should have seized this chance to give the whole shebang a nudge into oblivion and be rid of world sport's greatest and most patronising anachronism.

Once, we were all ruled from London - now we're not, so it seems absurd that we're about to dance a poor-man's Olympic jig to keep (the non-attending) Queen Betty chipper.

Today, the Commonwealth has no political weight or purpose. The relevance to New Zealanders of the Commonwealth - and the games that bear its name - diminished not long after we stopped standing for God Save the Queen at the cinema.

Instead, the nations at the Commonwealth Games are like guests at a party who have long since forgotten how it is we all came to be in the same room and what we might have once had in common. We shuffle awkwardly past the chips and dips, nodding to Kenya, to whom we haven't said "hello" in four years.

We give boring old Canada a wave and wonder if Mauritius will come along, or are they only on the list for the other - bigger, cooler, better - party that was recently on in Beijing?

Inevitably, as at all such ill-assorted social occasions, we end up in a corner relieved to chat with the few nations that we still know reasonably well: talking netball and rugby with the Aussies and Poms.

To top it off, the hosts for 2010 have left it too late to put up the trestle tables and hang the bunting.

Going to the Games comes at a cost. Sparc funding that could have gone to meaningful world championship success or boosting participation levels in community sport is instead poured into what is, by any measure, a minor campaign.

And let's not start on the obscenity of a country which is home to an estimated one-third of the world's poor throwing billions down the drain. The indecent late scramble to get Delhi tarted up to look like a First World Home and Garden magazine photo shoot has come home to roost with rogue poo in the athletes' rooms and facilities falling apart.

It's cold, it's callous, it would - sadly - leave an embarrassed India to carry the can, but this is the time that we should have put an end to the Commonwealth Games.

The most damning reason not to attend Delhi has nothing to do with bombs, dengue fever or excrement. Usain Bolt, the world's greatest athlete, simply couldn't be bothered. He's on to something.