Leap of faith to get into spirit of Games

By CHRIS RATTUE at the games

With Manchester being home to three of England's biggest soap operas, the Commonwealth Games were always going to struggle for podium time before the action began.

The 2002 Commonwealth Games are decidedly inside-page news in their host city, although they have been given a healthy amount of space.

The opening ceremony tomorrow will mean it's time for them to take their place in the sun, although the sun itself appears to be doing a runner.

It's hard to know which of the three Manchester soaps commands the greater attention - Coronation Street, Posh and Becks or the Manchester United football club.

At the moment the football club is the lead item, after signing Leeds United and England defender Rio Ferdinand.

Leeds will get £33 million (about $100 million) from the deal - just less than the sponsorship pool for the Games and nearly a third of what it cost to build the 40,000-seat main stadium in east Manchester.

Yet even Rio was booted off the front page this week when United's 73-year-old former manager, Tommy Docherty, was rescued from the whizzing brushes of a car-wash machine after he stepped out to find out why it had stopped. Now that really is a soapie.

It's not that Mancunians are anti the Games. They just don't seem that excited. Maybe it is the English way. Many events are sold out. But no one grabs you by the shoulders and screams: "I LOVE THE GAMES."

Even the security is a touch offhand, especially for anyone who was at the Sydney Olympics where they would have x-rayed your nostril hair if they could have got hold of it.

In Manchester, the gate brigade look at your pass and wave you in. A police presence became noticeable on Tuesday when security tape to seal potential bomb holes was plastered around game venues.

But after enduring the world of airline security post-September you-know-the-date, this is minimum security.

Maybe terrorists don't rate these Commonwealth Games.

They will be the biggest ever, but not the best because there are just not enough world-class athletes here and the warm, fuzzy Commonwealth thing is in decline.

Australia will turn up as the schoolyard bully while England plays prefect, trying to ward off the green and gold, medal-grabbing beast.

Even the claim that these are the Friendly Games struggles to survive.

Members of England's National Olympic Academy have apparently been harangued by Games organisers who were insisting that England win more golds than anyone else does.

A New Zealand gymnast recounted what she described as the psychological warfare tactics of the Australians, who tried to take over the floor during warm-up times.

Never again will there be 17 sports, and you suspect that eventually the Games will be based around a small number of games such as rugby with wide appeal and to whom the Commonwealth is the world. That's if the Commonwealth survives.

It is an odd institution and its Games are just as strange, featuring a random collection of athletes who range from the world's best to backyard boffins.

It is one of the event's charms and gives the amateur a fleeting chance of fame.

The world's best sporting competitions struggle to get it right. After all, we've just had a soccer World Cup that included Saudi Arabia and excluded Holland.

But the Commonwealth Games are more askew than most.

England, with home advantage, will stem the green and gold tide this time, but not in Melbourne in four years or wherever after that.

Full coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/manchester2002

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