Introduction

DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES

The two P words - pandemic and Putin - have caused massive upheaval in the world of sport but the Commonwealth Games could bring about some much-needed normality.

Birmingham’s hosting of the “Friendly Games” has promised top class sport in front of packed arenas, which would be a breath of fresh air after what we’ve faced over the past two years.

A large number of sporting events have been cancelled or dramatically relocated due to coronavirus or the invasion of Ukraine, with athletes losing the spotlight thanks to decisions that were out of their control.

This happened most notably at the Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 Olympics and Paralympics, which largely took place in eerie atmospheres behind closed doors.

Some things will inevitably be different in Birmingham, of course, but the Commonwealth Games looks set to be much more like the multi-sport events that we once knew and loved.

That is to be celebrated, but the road to this point has not been easy for organisers in the West Midlands city.

For starters, Birmingham is a stand-in host as the Games were originally awarded to Durban.

When it became clear that the South African city would not be able to stage the event, the English bid came off the substitutes' bench in December 2017 with much less time to prepare.

If that was not enough of a challenge, organisers then faced the chaos of the pandemic which locked the country down and ultimately led to plans for the Athletes’ Village being scrapped.

In this latest edition of The insidethegames.biz Magazine, senior reporter Geoff Berkeley speaks to Birmingham 2022’s big names to find out how they negotiated the complicated road which was in front of them.

Commonwealth Games Federation President Dame Louise Martin, Birmingham 2022 chief executive Ian Reid and Birmingham City Council leader Ian Ward all explain how the dream of “Brum” hosting the event turned into a reality.

When founding the Games in 1930, Canada’s Bobby Robinson said he wanted them to be “merrier and less stern” and distinct from the more overwhelming Olympics.

Chief feature writer Mike Rowbottom explores what makes the Games different, and why they deserve their “friendly” tag.

Alongside Birmingham 2022, the inaugural Commonwealth Esports Championships and Commonwealth Esports Forum will be held as the Movement makes its first dart into what is now a booming industry.

Junior reporter Eliott Brennan finds out about the events and talks to those in charge about what could become a regular feature at future editions of the Commonwealth Games.

Unfortunately, it would be amiss to completely ignore the two P words - which have removed China and Russia from the equation when sports seek hosts for their events. Chief columnist David Owen discovers that the absence of the two countries will have various knock-on effects for everybody involved.

This year marks two significant Olympic anniversaries as it is now 50 years since the Munich 1972 Games and a decade since London 2012.

Olympic historian Philip Barker looks back on the Games in Germany which were tragically marred by the terrorist attack on members of the Israeli team.

Mike takes us back in time to London and asks if the legacy goals of the Games have been met now 10 years have passed.

Those Olympics have both been and gone, and time could soon be up as well for the Global Association of International Sports Federations.

With the International Olympic Committee pushing for the body to be disbanded, Geoff asks what its role is in sport and questions if there is any hope for its revival.

If GAISF is in the past, social media behemoth TikTok seems very much like the future.

Desk editor Vimal Sankar discovers how sports have embraced the video sharing platform, which has become a new and innovative way of sharing content with the world.

If you enjoy this magazine and our yearround coverage of the Olympic Movement, I would like to invite you to make a contribution to support our journalism by logging on to www.insidethegames.biz/ contribute.

Every donation, however big or small, will help maintain and improve our work across the world in the years ahead.

We believe that Olympic news, and our extensive coverage of events such as the Commonwealth Games, should remain in the public sphere and be free of charge to read.

Enjoy the magazine.

Duncan Mackay

Editor

NO HURDLE TOO HIGH

Birmingham had reduced time to prepare for hosting the Commonwealth Games after Durban lost the rights, and then had to deal with the global pandemic. But as Geoff Berkeley finds out, the city has tackled all of its challenges head on.

Sitting in a room faced with a panel of Commonwealth Games Federation officials, Birmingham City Council leader Ian Ward had the chance to sell his long-held dream.

Tension building and nerves jangling, Birmingham-born Ward delivered his wellrehearsed, well-scripted pitch in a bid to bring the Commonwealth Games to his home city.

But there was something missing from his presentation.

“He wasn’t selling it,” said CGF President Dame Louise Martin as she recalled meeting Birmingham’s five-strong team in London.

“When you get four or five people sitting in front of you, deadpan, reading off notes, I am sorry, that’s not what I want to hear.

“These are our Games, full of passion.”

With the interview winding to a close and the CGF delegation yet to be fully convinced by Birmingham’s bid, Ward was asked for the final time why his city deserved to host the Commonwealth Games.

His answer proved to be the decisive factor.

“At that point I thought I am going to put the script aside and just speak from the heart about the journey I have been on and why I think Birmingham should do this and that’s what I did,” Ward said.

“Dame Louise has always said that it was my comments at the end that really convinced them that we had the will, desire and passion to do it.”

Dame Louise added: “Ian just sold Birmingham in 12 or 13 minutes.

“We all just sat back, looked at him and said ‘why on earth did you not start with that?’

“It would have saved everyone half an hour to an hour of our time. It was chalk and cheese.

“Ian is passionate in everything he says and does. He will stand up for Birmingham like nobody else.”

When Birmingham holds the Games from July 28 to August 8, it will be the end of a long road for Ward who knew his city could stage such a prestigious event when he saw Manchester play host in 2002.

Ward was the Council’s cabinet member for leisure, sport and culture at the time and he was invited to watch the Games in Manchester.

The trip fuelled Ward’s ambition to ensure Birmingham was the next English city to stage the Games.

Birmingham has a wealth of experience in holding global sporting competitions and it was back in 2003, when the city hosted the World Athletics Indoor Championships, that Ward first revealed his Commonwealth Games goal.

“There was a press conference at the end of the Championships and I said to Dave Moorcroft, who was chief executive of UK Athletics at the time, ‘I can’t go out there and say we haven’t got any ambitions. I am going to say our ambition is to host the World Athletics Championships’.

“Dave said ‘don’t say that as we probably can’t support you on it’, so I said ‘I won’t say that then but what I will say is that we are going to set the ambition of hosting the Commonwealth Games’.

“That’s what I said back then and I have been trying to persuade the city since then that this is something that we should do.”

After years of putting forward his case, Ward managed to get Birmingham City Council to agree in 2016 to bid for the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

A year earlier, South African city Durban was named as host of the 2022 edition at the CGF General Assembly.

GEOFF BERKELEY SENIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES

Durban was set to be the first African nation to hold the Games, but it soon became clear that the city was unable to pull it off due to financial constraints.

Having failed to sign the host city contract, form an Organising Committee or make any payments due to the CGF, Durban was stripped of the rights to host the Games.

With Dame Louise unable to get assurances that the South African Government would financially support the event, which was estimated to cost the country ZAR8 billion, the decision was taken by the CGF in March 2017 to find a new host of the 2022 Games.

It was a major blow to not only South Africa but also the CGF, as it left the organisation with the huge task of launching another bidding process with Gold Coast 2018 just one year away.

Liverpool had already publicly expressed its willingness to step in should Durban lose the rights, before Birmingham announced it was joining the race after switching focus from 2026 to 2022 when it became apparent the South African city could no longer play host.

The Australian cities of Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney had all revealed their interest in replacing Durban as well, along with Victoria in Canada and Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

London and Manchester had also initially considered bidding before the British Government confirmed that only Birmingham and Liverpool had officially applied as candidates by the May 2017 deadline.

Liverpool’s bid centred on creating an athletics track as part of Everton Football Club’s new stadium which is being built on the city’s Bramley-Moore Dock, whereas Birmingham already had one in place with the Alexander Stadium annually staging Diamond League meetings.

“We did have an advantage over Liverpool,” said Ward.

“We knew we would have to upgrade Alexander Stadium, but Liverpool was thinking whether they could put an athletics track in a new Everton stadium which was always going to be more difficult than what we had to do.

“We also had the National Exhibition Centre, the National Indoor Arena and the Convention Centre in Birmingham which gave us ready-built facilities that we knew we could put sporting events into.

“Having said that, Liverpool put together a very compelling bid and we did have to beat them.”

Dame Louise claimed Liverpool could have “easily” hosted the Games but, considering the shorter delivery time, she felt Birmingham was “further on with facilities” to hold competitions after being won over by Ward’s interview.

“They only had four years to deliver it,” said Dame Louise. “It was going to be very, very tight but we knew it was doable.”

There were jubilant scenes in Birmingham when the city was formally declared as the host of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in December 2017.

“I was absolutely elated, probably the highlight of my political career,” said Ward, who had been elected as Council leader earlier that year.

Once the celebrations had finished, the reality of putting everything in place to host the Games in just over four years soon set in. role on a permanent basis in January 2019.

The Scotsman, who had been chief financial officer when his home city of Glasgow staged the 2014 Games, had the giant job of overseeing the delivery of the event.

“Normally we would have that six-and-ahalf, seven-year window so it was a little daunting but that said, one of the more reassuring things was that we had a city and a region with existing venues and experience,” said Reid.

“We had people that had been involved in previous Olympics and Commonwealth Games in this country or overseas.

“Looking back there were probably 10 or 12 of us in a Council building in Birmingham who were starting the journey, but it was pretty positive.

“Despite the timeline, we recognised the opportunity that the Games gave to Birmingham.

“I always think with the Commonwealth Games that if you have got a reasonably compact centre that people can walk around you get the real power of these events, in terms of bringing the place to life, and Birmingham is definitely that kind of city.

“You then overlay that with the fact that it is both incredibly accessible for most of the country and has this hugely diverse community that I think the President of the CGF referred to as the ‘Commonwealth City’.

“There was a huge amount of ingredients there that I think led everyone to be really excited by the journey.”

Ian Ward and Dame Louise Martin during the rennovations at Alexander Stadium. Photo: Getty Images

Ian Reid has served as Birmingham 2022's chief executive.

Photo: Getty Images

GEOFF BERKELEY SENIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES

Durban was initially awarded the 2022 Commonwealth Games but was stripped of the right due to financial difficulties. Photo: Getty Images

The British Government pledged to inject £594 million into the delivery of the Games, with a further investment of £184 million coming from Birmingham City Council and a number of key local partners.

Central to Birmingham’s plans was the £72 million renovation of the Alexander Stadium which is set to stage the Opening and Closing Ceremonies as well as the track and field events.

The construction of a new £73 million Aquatics Centre in Sandwell was also proposed despite initial reservations from Dame Louise.

“I said they would never do the Aquatics Centre in four years because the biggest thing is that it has got water and water is the worst thing you can work with,” said the former Scottish international swimmer.

“You have got to make sure that it is the right size, right depth and that there are no leaks.”

Work on both of those sites, as well as the £500 million project to construct the Athletes’ Village in Perry Barr, was well underway when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, delivering a massive blow to Birmingham’s preparations for the Games.

In March 2020, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a nationwide lockdown, ordering everyone to stay at home in a bid to curb rising cases and deaths from the killer virus that was wreaking havoc around the world.

Even before COVID-19 had arrived, Birmingham 2022 knew they were facing a tight turnaround to get ready for the Games but now organisers had to respond to the most challenging global crisis since the Second World War.

“I always say to people that when you are organising a big multi-sport event like this the one thing that is really valuable is certainty,” said Reid.

“You want quite a solid foundation and to understand quite quickly the delivery model for things like transport, security and venues.

“As soon as you have something like COVID where the whole country is not sure what is going to happen, that is very difficult.

“That was a challenging time, there is no doubt about it.”

The pandemic brought nothing but uncertainty as a lockdown that people hoped would only last a few weeks ended up going on for months.

Under the restrictions, people were only permitted to leave their home for essential purposes including buying food or medical reasons, with swathes of businesses forced to close their doors to the public.

“Initially when everything stopped, I knew that if we could not get construction going again, we could be in real trouble,” said Ward.

“Credit to the construction industry as they came up with a way of working that enabled them to continue working through all the lockdowns.

“That was a moment when we said ‘we can do this.’”

Dame Louise added: “We didn’t know how long the pandemic was going to last and how the workers were going to do their jobs but the two companies that were building the two venues did not down tools.

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The Sandwell Aquatics Centre is a major new venue that has been built for the Games. Photo: Getty Images

“We owe them a great debt of gratitude that they kept the workers on, and the workers stayed on during the whole thing.”

While plans to redevelop the Alexander Stadium and build the Sandwell Aquatics Centre continued despite all the disruption caused by COVID-19, Birmingham’s dream of an Athletes’ Village for 6,500 athletes and team officials was dashed.

A review into the impact of the pandemic found that the complex could not be delivered on time, forcing organisers to come up with an alternative plan.

It was announced in August 2020 that Birmingham 2022 would instead adopt a three-campus model with athletes and officials housed at the University of Birmingham, the NEC Hotel Campus and the University of Warwick.

“I am absolutely convinced that without the pandemic the Athletes’ Village would have been delivered, knowing what has happened with the other venues, but it was always tight so with that level of disruption it was far too much of a risk to carry on,” said Reid.

“We still needed to deliver the legacy of the Games so firstly we were making sure that the project could still be delivered for Perry Barr.

“Those reassurances were given and the funding to support that was in place, so that was really positive.

“Secondly, we had to look at the feasibility of an alternative so where are the big accommodation blocks? Are they available?

“Are universities and other commercial partners able to step up to the plate?

“You are trying to get these assurances before you have got any contracts signed and are relying a little bit on goodwill.

“Pulling together Village plans is normally a year’s worth of work whereas we had this window of literally weeks to try to put it together.”

With Britain coming in and out of lockdowns in response to the rapidly evolving nature of the pandemic, Reid also faced the challenge of keeping morale high within the Organising Committee as staff worked from home.

Team building exercises included virtual quizzes while athletes also came online to give motivational talks before Reid ushered his staff back to the office as soon as restrictions started to be lifted.

“A lot of people working in the events world understand how big integration is,” said Reid.

“The feedback we have had is that we could not have done a lot of our jobs without physically being here.

“It would have been much more difficult, especially at the back end, doing it virtually.

“There is never a perfect call in these situations, but I generally think the approach that we took was the right one.”

Despite the pandemic, Birmingham 2022 continued to recruit with Reid’s team growing from 70 members of staff heading into the first lockdown to around 1,300 now.

Appetite for tickets for the Commonwealth Games also remained high with thousands being snapped up on the first day of general sale in December 2021.

Organisers expect to sell a record 1.5 million tickets for what is set to be among the first major international multi-sport events to be staged with fans since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I felt desperately sorry for the organisers of the Tokyo Olympics,” said Ward.

“Not only did they have to postpone for a year but even when they did deliver the event it had to take place behind closed doors.

“Looking back, we were saying ‘we have spent a lot of money but is it going to be worth it if we can’t have full stadia?’

“Fortunately, the vaccine programme and scientists working around the world to deliver those vaccines in a record time have got us to where we are now where we are able to host this event with almost all the tickets sold.”

GEOFF BERKELEY SENIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES

Women's T20 cricket will make its Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham. Photo: Getty Images

While the pandemic made the journey to the Games more complicated than Birmingham’s infamous spaghetti junction as organisers navigated through a series of challenges, including moving the dates forward by 24 hours to adapt to the new sporting calendar, the Queen’s Baton Relay had its own logistical issues to overcome.

Starting its 294-day voyage across the Commonwealth in Cyprus in October 2021, the baton was travelling at a time when the world was still grappling with the virus.

Bearers had to wear gloves and masks when the baton arrived in South Africa in December 2021 - just weeks after the first case of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19 was reported in the African nation.

When the baton made its way to Gold Coast in 2018, a dedicated team accompanied it on its journey, but Birmingham 2022 had to change that approach to safely visit all 72 nations and territories of the Commonwealth.

“What we have now is a model where you are relying on the Commonwealth Games Associations to take the baton, do the celebration and transition to the next one on their own whereas in the past we would have done all of that with people on the ground,” said Reid.

“That’s given them a much greater level of responsibility, but they have really embraced that.

“The pandemic has been a challenge getting the baton in and out but there was also a battle going through the South Sea Islands when there was a big earthquake. “The relay was clearly not their priority but the Governments and CGAs all said that ‘we need this, we need some good stories’. “They have had to think outside the box on a daily basis and it has been a real success story.” The baton made a special visit to London at the start of June to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee weekend before returning to England on July 4 for the final stages of its journey to Birmingham. Excitement is continuing to build as Birmingham is set to stage the first major multi-sport event in England since London held the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. A packed programme of action will see more medals for women than men awarded for the first time and more Para-sports played than ever before.

Women’s T20 cricket and 3x3 basketball are also set to make their Commonwealth Games debuts in Birmingham.

“We are going to have an exceptional Games,” said Dame Louise.

“I believe that we will get the best athletes from the Commonwealth attending our Games.

“We are one big family, and our brothers and sisters are coming to compete with us and then we will have a party afterwards.”

Birmingham has been forced to adapt like no other Commonwealth Games host, dealing with a shorter delivery timeframe and a global health crisis.

But all the major developments have been completed on time and the Games are expected to be delivered on budget, while creating a new model for future hosts.

“To be able to have accommodated all the changes, challenges and issues that we have faced and still be sitting here saying that ‘I can be very confident that the money will be sufficient to deliver the Games’ is a real achievement,” said Reid.

Ward also predicts that the Games will bring an economic benefit to Birmingham and the wider region of £1 billion while the City Council is planning to stage further big events in the future.

“The truth is we could not have afforded not to host the Games,” said Ward.

“If we hadn’t had done it, we would be sat here watching somebody else reap all these benefits.

“I know that I will wake up on August 9 - the day after the Closing Ceremony - with a hangover feeling after the event.

“But I am really hoping that on that day people will be saying to me ‘that was fantastic, we need to do something else’.

“’What are we doing next?’”