Rain fails to dampen Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games party

It’s only a week since the curtain fell on Glasgow 2014, although it feels like longer, with the sporting media having mercilessly moved on to the test match and the start of the new football season (groan!).

And although the Commonwealth Games was never going to compete with the London 2012 Olympics, for obvious reasons, the event surprised most people with how much it captured the imagination.

Hampden Park set up for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games 400m hurdles

Of course, it helps that all four UK teams did so well – Wales, Scotland and England all secured record medal hauls, Northern Ireland got their second best total, and England triumphed over Australia to top the medals table for the first time since 1986.

It was a games which lacked quite a few top names – Mo Farah, Jess Ennis-Hill, Usain Bolt from the individual competition – but, thanks to a crop of Home Nations stars, did not miss them. Whether it was gymnasts Dan Keatings and Frankie Jones, swimmers Fran Halsall and Ross Murdoch or track and field’s Jodie Williams and Eilidh Child, fears the global stars’ absence would hamper the games proved unfounded.

Like in London two years ago, Glasgow also got fully behind the games, even if it wasn’t always blessed with the same glorious weather as the Olympics. Being in Scotland for a week was a brilliant experience – it’s such a great place anyway – but it was only enhanced by seeing Lesotho and Mozambique squad members mingling with the crowds in Buchanan Street or Aussies chucking around an inflatable kangaroo on the way to Ibrox. Usain Bolt’s reported comments that Glasgow was s**t were wide of the mark, although he did backtrack later.

Ibrox, which hosted the rugby sevens

I was fortunate to get tickets to swimming, the rugby sevens finals and the (very wet) David Rudisha v Nijel Amos evening of the athletics. In those three sessions there wasn’t a whole lot to cheer as a Welshman. A silver and a bronze were a decent return for my night at Tollcross watching the swimming (though I wasn’t there for Georgia Davies or Jazz Carlin’s golds), but I watched Wales lose in the final play of the sevens bowl final to England and there was only one Welsh representative at the athletics (Brett Morse, fifth in the discus).

But in that sense I was unlucky, because Wales had a brilliant 11 days. Rhythmic gymnast Frankie Jones (born in Kettering, incidentally) kicked it all off and crowned her personal success by winning the David Dixon Award for the outstanding competitor and for a sense of fair play winning a gold and five silvers. Geraint Thomas’ triumph in almost the last event of the games, the men’s road race, capped it all off nicely. It meant the absences of some of our world-class athletes – Becky James, Helen Jenkins, Non Stanford, Fred Evans – were not as keenly felt as I had feared. A return of five golds, 11 silvers and 20 bronzes put Wales in 13th in the medals table, the same as in Delhi – but on that occasion we got only 19 podium finishes (three, six and 10 of the respective medal colours).

A swimming medal ceremony at Tollcross, with the Welsh flag raised for Georgia Davies’ silver

What about the bigger picture? Some commentators have said Glasgow 2014 saved the concept of the Commonwealth Games following an underwhelming version in Delhi in 2010. I’m not sure I’m qualified to comment on that particular issue, but it certainly quelled any doubts I has about it.

I think Rick Broadbent in the Times at the start of the week had it just about right:

The athletes had little but praise for Glasgow. There was a buzz. And as for Usain Bolt, he came, he saw and, ultimately, he concurred.

Get excited for the Commonwealth Games

I’ve never really found it very easy to get into the Commonwealth Games.

Maybe it’s the fact I didn’t have a chance to watch much of the last two editions – in Delhi in 2010 and Melbourne four years previously. Maybe it’s because, without the likes of USA, China and Russia, it sometimes has the feeling of almost a second-rate competition. Maybe it’s because I’m cheering on Team Wales, inevitably less successful than Team GB at an Olympics or World Championships.

Wales hosting the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games

But this time around I’m really looking forward to going up to Scotland for a week to watch Glasgow 2014, my first Commonwealth Games, where I’ve got tickets to swimming, rugby sevens and athletics, and which gets under way with the opening ceremony at Celtic Park on Wednesday.

And although the big names seem to be dropping like flies at the moment – Welsh boxer Fred Evans and English sprinter Dwain Chambers today joining the absentee list – I confidently predict the whole nation will be captivated by the Games, the first to be held on British soil since 2002, by this time next week.

As a Welsh fan, though, London 2012 silver medallist Evans’s presence will be missed – especially as, if you were picking a quartet of Wales medal prospects for Glasgow it could very well be made up of the 23-year-old, cyclist Becky James and triathletes Helen Jenkins and Non Stanford. All four will be missing from Scotland’s biggest city this summer.

Still, no point in being glum. Here are five bits of Welsh Commonwealth Games glory (or near-glory):

1. Weirdly, my all-time favourite Commonwealth Games moment saw Wales beaten by England. But what an effort red-haired Matt Elias put in on the final leg of the 4x400m relay to get within a photo finish of the English team. Although perhaps Wales, with a quartet of Elias, Jamie Baulch, Iwan Thomas and Tim Benjamin, should really have won it…

2. Dai Greene wins gold, Rhys Williams bronze

3. Colin Jackson winning 110m hurdle gold in 1994. Although he held the world record for a 13 years, he never won Olympic gold, so had to settle for top spot in the Commonwealths and the World Championships, both twice.

4. Robert Weale. If I need to say more, you clearly don’t even take a passing interest in the Welsh lawn bowls scene (shame on you!). Powys-based Weale won his first Commonwealth medal in 1986, is the reigning singles champion and one of Wales’s best-ever Commonwealth Games competitors. Disappointingly, I’ve not been able to find a video.

5. The 1958 Empire Games in Cardiff. The only time Wales has hosted the Commonwealth Games (or its predecessor). Admittedly, not a great sporting success for the hosts – Wales only managed one gold and 11th place out of 35 in the medal table. But just look at how mighty fine the old Cardiff Arms Park looked 56 years ago in the video above.