Commonwealth Games 2018: India, Canada hope for harvest of medals
| The 2018 Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast, Australia, will host 18 sports and para-sports events at 17 competition venues on the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns.
Nearly 6,600 athletes and team officials from 71 nations and territories will participate in the Games that involve approximately 15,000 volunteers and a Games workforce of over 35,000. There is a cumulative audience of 1.5 billion worldwide that may attract over 1.2 million ticketed spectators over 11 days of competition.
The 2018 Commonwealth Games Village (CGV) will host in excess of 6,600 athletes and officials during the 11 days of competition. The village will provide residential, retail, recreation, dining and medical facilities for the athletes.
Commonwealth Games 2018 Mascot: is Borobi, a blue koala.
The official song of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games is the Busby Marou track ‘Days of Gold’, which was released on October 17, 2014. This song, written by Phil Barton, Thomas Busby and Lindsay Rimes is a very ‘poppy’, ‘anthemic’ song. |
On Wednesday April 4, a colourful opening ceremony will mark the beginning of the XXIst Commonwealth Games that will feature nearly 6600 athletes from 71 member nations and territories. Prominent among participants are the hosts Australia, England, Canada and India besides New Zealand and a number of African nations, including South Africa, that were once members of the erstwhile British Empire.
While three-times Olympic medallist and diver Meagan Benfeito will carry the Maple leaf flag at the march past, it will be Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu who will do honours for India at the opening ceremony. Benfeito was a double gold medallist four years ago at Glasgow 2014, helping Canada become the most successful diving nation ever at the Commonwealth Games.
This is the fifth time Australia will play host to the Commonwealth Games, having previously done so at Sydney 1938, Perth 1962, Brisbane 1982 and Melbourne 2006.
Both Canada and India hope to improve upon their previous Games medals tally at Gold Coast. Indian hopes rest on badminton, wrestling, boxing, field hockey, shooting and other events while Canada hopes to corner glory in the water sports events, including swimming, diving, gymnastics, athletics.
Though Canada will miss its star sprinter Andre de Grasse, they will still have lots of experienced track and field stars hoping for podium finish.
Indian contingent will comprise 222 athletes from 15 different sports, including aquatics, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, cycling, gymnastics, hockey, lawn bowls, shooting, squash, table tennis, weightlifting, wrestling and para sports.
India has its best performance recorded when it played host to the Games in New Delhi with a record number of 101 medals, including 38 gold and 27 silver. In the last edition of the Games at Glasgow, India's medal tally was 64 and included 15 gold and 30 silver. From second finish in New Delhi in 2010, India had slipped to fifth position in Glasgow in 2014.
After a bronze in the 1934 Games, where India finished 12th, India failed to win a medal in 1938 and 1954 Games. India skipped 1950, 1962 and 1996 Commonwealth Games.
India's first ever gold medal in Commonwealth Games came only in 1958 when flying Sikh Milkha Singh won in 440 yards sprint. Lila Ram in heavyweight wrestling was the otrher gold medalist in the 1958 Games.Besides Milkha and Lila ram, wrestler Lachmi Kant Pandey won a silver in the 1958 Games. Since then India has a come way doing well in te Games.
There will be 283 athletes representing Canada, up from the 265 that competed in Glasgow. That increase is mostly due to the additions of men's and women's basketball, men's and women's beach volleyball, as well as women's rugby to the sport programme.
And how about this? Women outnumber the men on Team Canada, 52 per cent to 48 per cent.
There is coast-to-coast representation, with athletes hailing from nine of the 10 Canadian provinces, led by 89 from British Columbia and 83 from Ontario.
Benfeito is not the only the Olympic medalist on Team Canada. Rio 2016 champion Erica Wiebe may also be on look out for a medal on the wrestling mat.
Penny Oleksiak knows all about standing on podiums, having done it four times at Rio 2016. She's entered in fie individual swimming events.
Kylie Masse will compete in three backstroke events, including the 100m in which she is the reigning world champion and world record holder. Also racing in the pool will be
Hilary Caldwell and
Taylor Ruck. Canada will have 36 swimmers competing in able-bodied and para events.
The athletics team is also fully integrated and features 46 athletes. Leading the charge is Olympic bronze medallist decathlete
Damian Warner, who heads to the Games as the defending champion from Glasgow.
Andre De Grasse isn't competing but two members of the 4x100m relay team that won bronze in Rio are:
Aaron Brown and
Brendon Rodney. Othr notables include 2015 pole vault world champion
Shawn Barber and race walking duo
Evan Dunfee and
Ben Thorne, as well as RBC Training Ground winner Pierce Lepage.
Sultana Frizell has won the last two Commonwealth Games gold medals in women's hammer throw.
Eight of the women who won bronze in the first Olympic appearance for women's rugby sevens are going for more glory in Gold Coast.
Britt Benn,
Hannah Darling,
Bianca Farella,
Ghislaine Landry,
Megan Lukan,
Kayla Moleschi,
Natasha Watcham-Roy and
Charity Williams have all been named to the Canadian squad.
London 2012 bronze medallist
Jennifer Abel will compete in 1m and 3m springboard diving. After winning Olympic bronze in the team pursuit,
Allison Beveridge will compete in both track cycling and road cycling.
Gymnast
Ellie Black won three individual apparatus medals at Glasgow 2014 but has only gotten better since then, highlighted by her all-around silver at the 2017 World Championships.
Organizers are priding themselves on having an equal number of medal events for men and women. Canadian athletes will compete in 18 sports and 3 para-sports during the fully integrated Games.
Of course, there are those sports which are familiar to Olympic fans. The programme includes athletics, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, cycling (track, road, mountain bike), diving, field hockey, gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic), rugby, shooting, swimming, table tennis, triathlon, weightlifting, and wrestling. But there are also some Commonwealth specialties, such lawn bowls, squash and netball.
Commonwealth Games Canada has said the team is projected to win more than 100 medals, which would surpass the 82 Canada captured at Glasgow 2014 where England led with 174 medals and Australia was second with 137. Canada's largest single-Games total was the 129 medals won on home soil at Victoria 1994 while its largest haul on foreign soil is the 117 won at Manchester 2002.
-PTC News
