It’s the biggest event on the sporting calendar. It’s a competition that falls at an inconvenient time in the season. It’s a friendly event that doesn’t have the intense pressure of the Olympics.
The Commonwealth Games mean different things to different athletes.
“It’s the pinnacle of a squash player’s career,” said three-time Canadian squash champion Alana Miller.
No surprise then that Canada is sending its top squash team to the Commonwealth Games which open Sunday in New Delhi. For squash, as well as lawn bowling, the Games represent their only chance to participate in an international multi-sport event. The same went for rugby sevens until the game was added to the Olympic calendar for 2016.
“For the young players, they’re aware that this is as good as it gets for squash,” said Miller.
“The fact that it’s a multi-sport Games just brings an added element of excitement because there are such well-known athletes around the village. It’s just a great environment. It brings out the best wins and the best level of squash.”
Miller leads a squash team in India that will be hard-pressed to capture a medal against powerhouse countries such as England, Australia and Malaysia.
Most of Canada’s medals instead should come from swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, track and field and shooting. In those sports, Canada has assembled its top teams with just a couple of exceptions.
Canada captured 87 medals four years ago in Melbourne, Australia, to finish third behind Australia and England, and should be on pace to equal or beat that number in India.
Canada’s highest medal haul — 129 — came in Victoria in 1994.
It’s been a chaotic lead-up for Canada’s athletes, some of whom had their departures pushed back a few days due to problems at the Games village. Criticism of the filthy conditions at the athlete residences is one of many problems organizers have been dealing with in recent months. Dubbed the “Shame Games,” the event has also been marred by corruption allegations, concerns about the quality of construction work and security worries.
But only a couple of Canadian athletes decided not to make the trip due to the problems. Some 255 Canadians will compete in New Delhi in every sport but tennis and netball.
Canada captured 16 medals in swimming in Melbourne, and Pierre Lafontaine, Swimming Canada’s CEO and national coach, said a good showing in India is key with less than two years to go to the 2012 London Olympics.
“It gives us a good overview of where we are,” Lafontaine said. “The Commonwealth Games is always an important meet only because the Austalians are there and the English are there, especially going into the Olympic Games. It’s an important meet for the fact that our main competitors are going to be ready so we have to be there ready too.”
The one negative for swimming in India is the meet falls during what is normally a down time between seasons. It’s the same story for track and field, which prompted Canadian star hurdlers Priscilla Lopes-Schliep and Perdita Felicien to take a pass on the Games.
The Canadian track team won 13 medals four years ago and has targeted about the same number this time around.
“It will take really strong performances on the day from our best people,” said Athletics Canada’s head coach Alex Gardiner. “We’ve got a lot of people who are ranked anywhere from second to fifth, and the fifth-placers can move up and the second and third-placers need to hold their own.”
Despite the absence of Usain Bolt, the sport’s biggest star, Jamaica’s powerhouse sprint squad still adds to the Commonwealth’s strength in the speed events — sprints, hurdles, relays. The distance events are also strong, thanks to the presence of the Kenyans.
Canada has utterly dominated in synchronized swimming, not traditionally a strong event in the Commonwealth, winning all 12 gold medals since the sport was added to the lineup in 1986. Marie-Pier Boudreau-Gagnon, double gold medallist four years ago, looks to add two more victories to her collection.
Veteran Susan Nattrass leads a Canadian shooting squad in what she expects will be her final Commonwealth Games appearance. Canada won 10 shooting medals four years ago in Melbourne, and hopes to brings home as many from India.
“(Canadian) Shooting has always done well in Commonwealth Games and I think it’s because we really enjoy them,” Nattrass said. “They’re very competitive but they’re fun, they’re friendly, there’s not the intensity you get at the Olympics or even the Pan Ams.”
Nattrass, who’s won five Commonwealth Games medals, said the shooting run-up to the London Olympics begins in earnest soon after the Games.
“The Commonwealth Games are a wonderful warmup, it’s a good competition to have,” Nattrass said. “But I think the Commonwealth Games are in and of themselves a really wonderful Games.”
Rugby sevens is always competitive at the Commonwealth Games with the presence of New Zealand, England, Australia, Somoa and South Africa. But this year’s event isn’t sanctioned by the International Rugby Board in terms of releasing players from their professional contracts, so some of the game’s top players may have to skip India.
“We’ve been quite fortunate, our team we’re taking to the Commonwealth Games is quite strong with some of our professional players that we’ve been able to get released,” said Rugby Canada’s CEO Graham Brown. “But not every country will have their players released for that.”
Brown said that while performance at the Commonwealth Games used to affect a sport’s funding from Sport Canada, that was eliminated in 2006, so a strong showing at next year’s Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, will carry much more weight.
“If we won the Commonwealth Games, there’s no merit to that within Sport Canada or the OTP (Own The Podium) structure,” Brown said. “It’s very interesting.”
One team that’s notably weaker for India than it was four years ago is gymnastics. Canada captured 13 medals in artistic gymnastics in Melbourne, but is sending its B squad this time because the world championships open Oct. 16 in Rotterdam, just two days after the closing ceremonies.