A lot of stuff happened last weekend, and I was a little busy, so my next couple of posts will basically be spent catching up on some of that news. And, with the two-years-to-go mark for the Rio Games coming up on Tuesday, I figured this one would be the best place to start.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games just came to an end in Glasgow. To me, the Commonwealth Games have never really been little more than a fascination. As the name suggests, only countries that are part of the Commonwealth of Nations (translation: former British colonies) participate in the Commonwealth Games. And, because of that little thing known as the Revolutionary War, the U.S. is obviously not a part of the Commonwealth.
Since the U.S. doesn't participate, the American interest level in the Commonwealth Games ranges from slim to none. (In fact, even some Commonwealth countries are starting to question their relevance.) That's why I was somewhat surprised to find daily one-hour highlight shows on CBS Sports Network every night during the Games. They also had a live stream of the world feed on YouTube, so the coverage of the Commonwealth Games in the U.S. was surprisingly comprehensive. And that gave me a chance to see more of the Commonwealth Games than I ever have before.
One of the first things I noticed and had a really hard time getting over was that the 71 "countries" that participated in the Commonwealth Games included all of the separate parts of Great Britain competing as their own "national" teams. That means England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all, for all intents and purposes, independent entities for a week and a half. And it got even more confusing when you threw in teams from the Isle of Man and Jersey, as well as territories that are technically part of other Commonwealth nations (like the Pacific islands that are owned by Australia or New Zealand). So, you had athletes that represent "Great Britain" internationally most of the time now competing for "England" instead. It took some getting used to.
There are also plenty of things that you have to take with a grain of salt when it comes to the Commonwealth Games. The field in a number of sports is obviously weakened by not having the Americans and the Russians and the Germans and the Chinese there. For example, India is a Commonwealth Games power, but rarely makes a dent in the Olympics. This isn't the case in all sports (you still have the Australian swimmers and British cyclists), but, for the most part, the competition at the Commonwealth Games is significantly weaker.
Another unique element of the Commonwealth Games is really cool. There are Paralympic events in five sports. But instead of having a separate Paralympic competition, those events were worked into the regular program, with the medals won counting the same as medals won by able-bodied athletes. It was a wonderful thing to see.
But probably the most unique thing about the Commonwealth Games is the sports that you see there, but not anywhere else. That's because, obviously, they're most popular in the Commonwealth and not as much elsewhere in the world. For example, field hockey was almost cut from the Olympics (one of the reasons they said was because it's popularity is limited to the Commonwealth), but it's the only team sport that has both a men's tournament and a women's tournament at the Commonwealth Games.
Speaking of team sports, one of the few women's-only sports that's played at an elite level is also required to be on the Commonwealth Games program. That sport is netball. I'd heard of netball, but never seen it played, so that was perhaps the sport I was most curious about heading into the Commonwealth Games. Sorry to all the netball fans and players out there, but now that I've seen it, I think it's one of the dumbest sports there is.
Netball is very similar to basketball. In fact, really similar. Most of the time I would get frustrated and yell at the TV, "Why don't you just play basketball?!" But that wasn't even the part that bugged me the most. In netball, the players don't have numbers. Instead they pin little things with their position on their uniforms. It looks incredibly tacky. Certain positions are only allowed to go in certain areas on the court. OK. That's fine. I get that part. But they're not allowed to wear numbers why exactly? Why not just assign numbers to each position? Problem solved. And that would look less weird.
My other Commonwealth Games-exclusive curiosity was lawn bowls. If I had to pick an Olympic sport to compare to lawn bowls, it would probably be curling. Curling has the rings and lawn bowls has a little ball, but otherwise they're really similar. Except I was confused by lawn bowls, as well. In addition to singles, they have doubles, triples and fours. None of that is confusing. The confusing part is that players on the same team didn't use the same colored balls (and I even think I saw similarly-colored balls used by players on opposing teams). The only way to tell that they're balls from the same team is because they have little stickers on them. Little stickers that you can't see on the overhead shot. So, basically, it's impossible to tell which team is actually winning. The solution here seems easy, too. Teammates use balls of the same color, or at least different shades of the same color.
Sports like netball and lawn bowls are definitely niche sports where the Commonwealth Games are the pinnacle of competition. (Squash, which is still waiting for that Olympic debut it deserves, is also featured in the Commonwealth Games.) They may be quirky and those of us who don't live in the Commonwealth may find them weird, but they're part of what makes the Commonwealth Games unique. And for that reason, I kind of embraced their quirkiness.
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