I’ve never been exactly sport obsessed, but the sports I follow and enjoy are generally Olympic sports, rather than the rugbies or cricket. (partly because I do enjoy watching women compete at elite level – tennis is the only sport that gets even close to equal time for women compared to men outside the olympics).
But even given that, I can’t get into the Commonwealth games. It’s just too far away from the best in the world. Last night the women’s gymnastics was on, which I had to watch. Unfortunately Channel 9 decided many others had the same idea, so I watched the entire telecast from 7.30 to 10.30 before they put any of it on.
There were one or two events that were clearly pretty close to world class (both women!) – women’s pursuit cycling (Olympic champion against World Champion) and women’s 100m swimming (Olympic champion against world record holder), but most were clearly a long way away.
In the gymnastics, the bronze medal was won by a gymnast who fell on all four apparatus. That’s a pretty damning indictment on the quality of the competition.