What is the point of the Commonwealth Games?

THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES, which began in Birmingham on July 28th with a crowd-pleasing opening ceremony, suffer from a Pepsi Cola problem. The athletic standard is among the highest in international sport. At the previous games, in Queensland in 2018, competitors broke nine world records. But, like the fizzy drink, the games are overshadowed by a bigger rival. The summer Olympics are often unwieldy and expensive, but are guaranteed to draw an audience of billions. The Commonwealth Games have the same drawbacks. But they are also at risk of becoming irrelevant.

Without the Commonwealth Games, or at least the idea of them, the modern Olympics might not exist. An event for competitors from across the British Empire was first suggested in 1891 by John Astley Cooper, an English clergyman, under the clumsy name of the Pan-Britannic-Pan-Anglican Contest and Festival. His idea inspired Pierre de Coubertin, the Frenchman who revived the games of ancient Greece five years later. Yet it took until 1930 for the first iteration of the Commonwealth Games (then known as the British Empire Games) to take place, in the Canadian city of Hamilton. It was “designed on the Olympic model” but “merrier and less stern”, according to the organisers. This ethos has endured, with the event adopting the motto “the friendly games” in 1974, four years after mention of the empire was dropped from the name.