Final Thoughts on the Commonwealth Games: Glasgow 2026

Final thoughts on the Commonwealth Games

Let’s start with a few numbers:

Over 11 days of competition, world-class athletes from 74 nations and territories competed across 10 sports for 1,168 medals in 215 medal events. More than 630,000 people engaged with the Games through venues, live sites and the Glasgow 2026 Festival; over 4,000 volunteers gave 156,110 hours of their time, with the Games’ social media channels alone drawing nearly half a billion views.

While this was a multi-sport event, I only attended the track and field, and the program was mixed.  There were events like the men’s mile with two World Champions in the field (Josh Kerr and Jake Wightman), which would have graced any track meet in the world.  Other events were rather second division in quality.  That the event was just one week before the European Athletics Championships meant that many of the top English athletes opted out – or, like Amy Hunt, competed only in the 100m semis and final.  Scottish athletes were out in force proudly competing for Scotland in Scotland.

Credit to Glasgow for stepping in to save the games at short notice; Glasgow was an excellent host city, very welcoming. In 2014, when Glasgow last hosted the games, there was a purpose-built athlete village; this time, athletes were spread across 18 hotels. Speaking from personal experience, I was disappointed that there was no media transport, no free travel on public transport, and that the cheapest media hotel was $430 a night – in a budget hotel.  The cost this week would be about $160. Disappointing that the organizers allowed hotels to exploit media from the smaller Commonwealth countries.

In 2014, track and field was at Hampden Park, the national soccer stadium, converted for the Games, a stadium with a capacity of around 50,000.  In 2026, it was Scotstoun Stadium, with a capacity of 11,000, but even that, I believe, was only filled for the final evening.  In 2022, Birmingham had regularly crowds of 25,000 for morning sessions.

One of the ironies was that Australia topped the medal table – in track and field and across all sports – yet the games were in Glasgow because Melbourne pulled out and the Australian government effectively pulled the plug on Gold Coast’s attempt to step up – by refusing them any federal funds!

India will host the next games in Ahmedabad (Amdavad), Gujarat,  in October 2030, when we will probably be asking the same questions – is this the last ever Commonwealth Games?

The medal table – all sports – showed:

With 22 countries winning at least one medal

The medal table – track and field only – showed: